


it's love, isn't it

by boos



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boos/pseuds/boos
Summary: Diana pokes Anne in the cheek again, fingertip tapping against her freckled skin, until Anne’s grumpiness disappears from her face, and then, as though it is the most casual news in the world, Diana says softly, “There’s a boy coming to stay at the castle this week.”Anne sits halfway up in surprise, blades of grass twirling away from the cloth on her back and shoulders. “A boy?” Anne asks, almost disgusted by the thought. “In the castle?”(or: Gilbert is the prince from a distant land that Diana is supposed to marry, and Anne will find any reason to hate him.)
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 25
Kudos: 118





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello friends, i know it's a weird time in the world when i am posting this, so i just wanted to say first and foremost: i hope you all are doing ok and staying safe and healthy! working on this little thing has helped me a lot during this time, so i hope reading it might help some of you in some way
> 
> i have most of this written already, so i'll def be updating regularly enough! this fic is a little out of my comfort zone in some areas, so bear w/ me here
> 
> title is from the song 'it's love, isn't it' from the howl's moving castle ost

Spring days in the Kingdom of Carmody deserve to last forever, Anne thinks. 

It’s in spring that the sun rises earlier and earlier with each passing day, spilling honey light all throughout the land that Anne and Matthew drive through in their wagon to get to the city. It’s in the spring that all the flowers and weeds come back to life, and the private garden off of Diana’s room sprouts with all kinds and colors of them, so many that Anne’s nose gets tired from sniffing all of them.

On the current fine spring day, Diana and Anne lie in Diana’s garden for the longest time, until the clouds that cover the sky have come and gone and have left them with an enormous blue canvas. Diana has successfully unraveled Anne’s hair from it’s braids and is twisting and twirling it in between her fingers as Anne squints up at the sun, wondering if this kind of activity will only garner her _more_ freckles until she becomes one big, speckled blob of a girl.

Anne sighs. “Diana,” she asks into the open air, “Do you think I will ever find a boy who will love me even though I look like a canvas someone has splattered paint on?”

This rouses a surprised bark of laughter from Diana. “Anne,” she says, a fond smile in her voice, “We have this conversation every week. _Yes._ Of course.”

“How do you know that, though?” Anne asks, frowning at the sky. One lone cloud has traveled it’s way back into the sea of blue and Anne watches it intently.

“Boys are easy,” Diana says idly, “Isn’t that what you said Josie told you? Boys fall for a flick of the wrist and the sight of a girl’s ankles.”

Anne grumbles, “That’s easy for both you _and_ Josie Pye to say.” She thinks of Josie’s long blonde hair and thick eyelashes. She thinks of Diana’s smile and flushed cheeks. “I told you – Josie’s one of the most popular girls at school, and you – well you’re – you know.” Anne gestures to the world around them, the castle that towers above them in Diana’s little garden, the white spires and speckled pointed rooftops.

Diana just pokes the corner of Anne’s mouth until it causes her frown to disappear. “Don’t worry. I’m sure you and Jerry will get married and have five kids and a wonderful life together.”

Anne recoils away from Diana’s touch as she starts laughing uproariously. “Don’t even joke about that! I can barely _stand_ Jerry for more than an hour or two before we start to go at each other’s throats!” Diana is still laughing, her shoulders shaking with it, and Anne sticks her tongue out at her. “That is _not_ funny.”

Diana just pokes her in the cheek again, fingertip tapping against her freckled skin, until Anne’s grumpiness disappears from her face, and then, as though it is the most casual news in the world, Diana says softly, “There’s a boy coming to stay at the castle this week.”

Anne sits halfway up in surprise, blades of grass twirling away from the cloth on her back. “A _boy_?” Anne asks, almost disgusted by the thought. “In the castle?”

“Indeed.”

Anne waits for a moment, but Diana offers no other information. “And?” Anne asks, looking at her intently.

“He’s a prince,” Diana says slowly, “I’ve never met him, but Mother and Father have, once, a couple years ago.”

Anne scoots closer to her best friend, rolling over on her belly and looking at Diana with her chin in her hands. “What is he here for?”

“Diplomatic reasons,” she says, and then turns toward Anne, “It's important to strengthen alliances and make friends.” Diana speaks with that trance-like, even voice she always uses when she talks about the nature of the court or her responsibilities as princess, like she’s just repeating information someone has written down for her and is five steps removed from all of it.

“What’s his name?”

“Gilbert.”

Anne scrunches her face up. “Gilbert isn’t a very princely name.”

Anne watches a smile unfurl on Diana’s face. “No, it’s not really, is it?”

“I bet he’s all snooty,” Anne says, already scheming a picture of this boy in her mind, “ _Gilbert._ Who has a name like Gilbert and isn’t snooty? I bet he asks for three sugars in his tea and no less.”

“Anne, _I_ like three sugars in my tea –”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t be upset if someone gave you two. I bet _Gilbert_ would complain.”

Diana just shakes her head fondly, like Anne is the most ridiculous person in the world. She stares off at the sky absently and then after a beat she joins in with, “I bet he won’t even talk to me the whole time he’s here. He’ll be so stuck up that he won’t even look my way –”

“If he doesn’t look your way then he’s _blind_.”

Diana laughs, her face scrunched up in delight. She looks toward Anne, a smile still tucked into her cheeks. “Will you still come visit next weekend?”

“You think a _boy_ would scare me away?” Anne scoffs. “Please, I've put up with Jerry for long enough that I know exactly how to deal with men. The only man worth my time is Matthew.” She sighs wistfully. “Oh Diana, you must meet him someday – he gives the best hugs.”

Diana looks up at Anne longingly, the way she always does when Anne talks about Avonlea and the people in it. “I’d love to meet both Matthew and Marilla – and all of your friends! I want to visit the farm so badly.”

“You will! Someday.” Anne nods, even though she wonders if it will ever happen, if the Queen and King will ever let Diana truly roam beyond these castle grounds. “I’ll have to show you the Lake of Shining Waters and Lover’s Lane – oh, and Ruby would just about lose her _mind_ if she ever met you. She asks me about you all of the time.”

Diana turns her face up to the sky dramatically, the sunlight framing her expression. “Do you tell her about my dashing looks, good fellow?”

“Why yes, my lady, I do,” Anne replies in her fanciest voice, playing along as she watches Diana start to break character and giggle, “I tell high tales of you all across the country – I say how you’re the fairest of them all.”

Diana gasps, placing a hand on her forehead. “What a charmer you are,” and then falls back against the grass laughing.

The sun in the sky is slowly making its descent toward the horizon, creeping into late afternoon. Anne watches the light beam onto Diana’s face, the way her brown curls surround her head angelically on the ground. “Don’t you have etiquette lessons to get to?” Anne asks, thinking of the time.

Diana closes her eyes as though she has no cares in the world. “Perhaps,” she admits, “but they’ll come get me eventually.” Her eyes flutter open. “What? Are you sick of me?”

Anne shakes her head. “Never in a million, trillion years, darling Diana.” 

Someone does come to get Diana eventually, rouses her up and off of the ground and toward one of the many rooms in the castle, and one of them escorts Anne through the tall, towering white halls and toward the front gates, but for those few minutes lying in the grass, they get to have a little bit more sun.

  
  
  


The guards refuse to let Anne in the next week.

“Anne,” she reminds them for the hundredth time, pointedly annoyed, “Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, remember? I come here every Sunday?”

The two armored men just stare down at her, unblinking. They stand in front of the large oak door that Anne usually uses to enter the castle, but apparently not today. “We’re sorry ma’am, but we are under strict orders from the Queen to keep visitors at a minimum.”

“But Diana –” their eyes narrow at her and she corrects herself with a quick, frustrated sigh, “ _Princess_ Diana told me last week that I was exclusively allowed to come visit her this very Sunday. I wouldn’t lie to you about that!”

Neither of them say anything for a moment, almost as if they hadn’t heard her at all, and when Anne doesn’t leave, the one on the left lets out a long-winded sigh. “Ma’am, once again, we can only tell you that we have been given strict orders to –”

“I know what your orders are!” Anne snaps, placing her hands on her hips, “And I’m _telling you_ that they are wrong.”

The one on the left pinches his nose, and the one on the right takes over, clearing his throat and standing tall. “Little girl, if you don’t leave soon, we will have to escort you off the premises –”

“Ask her!” Anne demands loudly. “I bet if you went and asked the Princess _or_ the Queen right now, they would let me in and you two would be embarrassed for treating the Princess’ best friend this way!”

The one on the right just grasps his lance a little tighter, undisturbed by Anne pulling out her _best friend_ card, and he moves closer to her as though he was herding cattle. “Little girl, it’s time to move along now.”

Anne huffs, realizing she’s getting nowhere, and turns her nose up at the guards as she swivels around. That’s fine, she thinks. She is a resourceful _little girl_ who is not due to meet Matthew in the city square until dark, and that’s hours from now.

  
  
  
  


Anne executes her plan by edging around the outside of the castle walls, staying close to the stone bricks and trying expertly to identify which rooms of the castle she is outside of precisely.

This entire plan is, for all intents and purposes, most likely against the law, but Anne will be damned if she has to skip a week of seeing Diana. She only ever gets to visit on Sundays because that’s when Matthew has to ride into the city to sell produce and the thought of having to wait a whole other week to hear Diana’s laugh – _especially_ when she knows there might be a snooty boy about, poking and prodding around – sounds quite awful to Anne’s ears.

When she finds a spot in the wall where the stone bricks have loosened and shifted in place, her eyes light up. She glances up, spots a large tree on the other side of the wall that shares resemblance to the oak planted in Diana’s private garden, and she grins, making sure her satchel is tight around her shoulders before she starts to climb.

The climbing requires a little more effort than she had expected and, somehow, the wall seems much taller than it had when she was on the ground, but she still soldiers on, finding places to stick her feet and then pull herself up, her fingers clawing onto any sort of protruding surface to gain leverage. Eventually she reaches the top of it, huffing and puffing, but as she swings one leg over with a little too much momentum, the stone becomes slippery underneath her fingers and she loses her balance. Suddenly all she sees is the ground rushing toward her.

It feels like she falls for a good thirty seconds, even though she knows the wall she’s just climbed cannot be _that_ tall, but by the time she hits the ground with a heavy _oof!_ she’s had enough time to regret every decision she’s made that day. Anne lays there motionless in the green grass that had always been so plush and soft to lay in with Diana that now barely even tried to cushion her fall. 

Someone goes, “Hello?” in a voice that is very much not Diana’s, and Anne whips her head up so fast the whole world goes dizzy for a second. She blinks, begging for the earth to come into focus, and when it finally does she sees a boy.

Anne scrambles to sit up, blinking rapidly the whole time, like maybe the boy is just a trick of the light. He’s standing a few feet away from her, his bare feet in the grass, and Anne can see open French doors behind him that leads to a room that is certainly not Diana’s.

“Are you okay?” The boy asks, his eyebrows furrowed. He looks up wildly at the stone wall behind her, like he’s trying to figure out if she’s just dropped out of the sky. Then his eyes fall back down to her. “Are you supposed to be here?” Anne suddenly knows that expression on his face too well – he’s going to call the guards on her.

“No, no – I mean, yes! Yes, I am supposed to be here.” Anne scrambles to her feet, pausing to brush her skirt out and make sure her braids are neat and tidy, only to find them full of grass and dirt. She stands up straighter and clutches the strap of her satchel. “I’m here to see Princess Diana. I’m her best friend, you see, but the guards at the gate refused to let me in for some reason, so I had to take some liberties with finding a way in.” She smiles widely, hoping it will help dissuade him from thinking she’s a threat.

This only makes the boy look more confused; the disbelief is apparent all over his face. It’s then that Anne notices he has a book in his hands, and she realizes she must have overshot Diana’s private garden by just a smidge and ended up in the library garden.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” Anne rushes out, “I meant to end up in Diana’s quarters, but, well…”

He tilts his head at her. “Is that how you get to your destinations? By falling out of trees?” There’s a hint of laughter in his voice and it makes Anne flush.

She places her hands on her hips and opens her mouth, about to say something to save face in reply, but it is at that moment that someone’s steps can be heard from inside and Diana appears in the doorway. “Prince Gilbert!” She calls happily, and then stops in her tracks upon seeing Anne, the smile dropping from her face. “ _Anne?_ ”

Anne’s eyes go wide. She looks back at the boy standing in front of her grasping a book. He’s in a dressed down cotton shirt and trousers – a commoner outfit, the type of thing boys wear in the city. Anne has never met a prince, has never known anyone royal other than the Barrys, but she didn’t think princes looked like _that_. She’d surely thought she’d know a prince on sight if she ever met one, _especially_ one with the name _Gilbert._

“Oh!” is all Anne can think to say. She feels her face go red.

Diana rushes out onto the grass, lifting the skirt of her dress up in order to not get mud and dirt all over it. She’s in a nice outfit, the type of thing Anne usually sees her in right before she’s about to go to a royal meeting. “Anne?” Diana calls again, looking between Anne and the boy, “What are you _doing_ here? How –”

“I came over the wall.” Anne then rushes out, “Oh Diana, _please_ don’t be mad at me. They wouldn’t let me in even though I insisted that you wanted me here, and so I thought the only way I might be able to see you today was to take matters into my own hands.”

Diana gasps, and then she cries, “Anne! Did you fall? Are you okay?” She walks closer to Anne and starts picking the grass out of her braids. “Mother must have told them not to let anyone through. Anne, I’m so sorry, but –” and then she steps back for a moment so she can look Anne in the face, “You shouldn’t have done that! You could have gotten hurt or worse!”

“I’ve climbed many things before, adventure and I are quite well acquainted –”

“But look at you!” She huffs, obviously distraught, “What if you had hit your head?” Diana just sighs, and in the split second before she turns around to look back at Gilbert, Anne watches her rearrange the expression on her face carefully to something prim and proper. “Prince Gilbert, I’m terribly sorry you’ve been involved in this mix up. This is my friend, Anne. Usually she visits me on Sundays.”

This entire time Gilbert has been watching the two girls converse with an amused face, standing there in the grass with the wind gently mussing up his curls. His expression turns achingly kind at Diana’s words and he looks at her and shakes his head. “No, it’s alright. I just wasn’t sure what was going on, that’s all.” He looks toward Anne, a glint in his eyes. “Do girls fall out of trees in Carmody often?”

Diana gives a nervous laugh. “Oh – oh no – Anne is just a little bit _adventurous_.” Anne frowns at how flustered Diana is. 

Gilbert shoots Anne a smile – one that does not charm Anne because she remembers how he’d looked at her only a few minutes ago, how he _surely_ would have gotten her kicked out if she hadn't stalled him. She frowns back at him instead.

“Right, well!” Diana says, her voice high-pitched in the way it gets sometimes when she’s embarrassed, and she grabs Anne’s hand, “We will be in my quarters until dinner time. Apologies again for the interruption.”

As they pass by Gilbert on the way inside, Anne mumbles at him, “Sorry,” but resolutely does not look him in the face as she does so.

  
  
  


“I don’t like him.”

“Anne!”

“He was going to call the guards on me, you know. I could see it on his face!”

“Well, he probably thought you were trying to rob the castle!”

Anne puts her arms out wide and gestures to herself: her knobby knees, her worn-down green dress, her freckled, girlish face. “Do I look like a robber?”

Diana turns around to look at Anne, her eyes wide with frustration. “When you’re falling over the side of the castle walls you probably do, yes!”

Anne reaches out to take Diana’s hand. “Please don’t be mad.” She begs.

Diana sighs. “Anne, I’m not mad, I just… I just wish you had fallen over _my_ wall, that’s all.”

“So do I! I could have spent the rest of my life without having to be the subject of that boy’s scrutinizing gaze.” Anne huffs, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Anne!” Diana admonishes for the hundredth time. “That’s not just some boy. He’s a prince – you can’t talk about him like that.”

Privately Anne thinks that she will talk about him however she wants, but she bites her tongue and nods. “I’m sorry to cause trouble. All I wanted to do was see you and spend our afternoon together.” She dramatically drapes herself across Diana’s arms. “Oh princess, will you ever forgive me?” She bats her eyelashes and puts a hand to her forehead, like she might faint if Diana doesn’t.

Diana fights back a smile, but gives into it easily. She giggles and says, with fondness dripping from every word, “Anne, you are so odd. You’re the oddest person I’ve met in my life, you know.”

“You must have met an awful lot of boring people,” Anne replies.

They fall to the floor of Diana’s room and Anne pinches the fabric of Diana’s dress in between two fingers. It’s stiff, but it shimmers wonderfully in the light. “We’re having dinner with Gilbert tonight,” Diana provides as an explanation for the outfit, “Mother and Father want me to look nice. It’s his first real night here.”

Something about that doesn’t sit right with Anne, this idea that Diana has to be dressed up in order to be considered nice. “Well, it is a beautiful dress,” Anne says wistfully. Her freckles and her hair would never look good in this shade of blue, but she can’t help but imagine what she might look like in something as fine as this.

“He’s quite cute, isn’t he?” Diana asks out of nowhere.

Anne’s face screws up in bemusement. “What? Who?”

Diana breathes a laugh. “Gilbert, obviously.”

Abbe thinks of how he’d looked at her after Diana had rushed in, a dimpled smile and flushed cheeks. He must have been reading out in the sun. “I don’t know,” Anne mumbles, “I didn’t really get a good look at him.” She lies.

“I only talked to him in passing this morning, but he seems rather nice, not stuck up at all like we imagined,” Diana says, a satisfied smile tucked into her cheeks, “He is a bit aloof, but… I don’t know. I mean, I’ve only just met him, after all.”

Anne frowns. She hadn’t really expected to come visit Diana and spend her time talking about a boy. “I suppose,” Anne says, because that’s the only thing she really knows how to say.

There’s a knock on the door, interrupting Diana’s starry eyed ramblings, and none other than Diana’s mother sticks her head through it.

“Sweetheart,” she calls and when her eyes fall on Anne she goes, “Oh! Anne?” The Queen looks rather surprised. “How did you get in here?” She asks politely, but Anne can see the outright confusion on her face as she wonders who must have disobeyed her orders.

Anne just shrugs sweetly, an innocent smile on her lips.

“Mother,” Diana says, looking up at her with batting eyelashes, “Since Anne is here, don’t you think she should join us for dinner?”

The Queen’s eyes are stuck on Anne’s braids, where Anne must still have grass tucked. She quickly brings her hands to her hair to sort it out as the Queen comments, “Well, Diana, I’m not sure…”

“Oh Mother, please?” Diana begs. “She's had dinner with us before and it hasn’t been a problem.”

This is true. In the two years Anne and Diana have been friends, Anne has been privy to a few dinners at the castle, and each time they enraptured her. Her plate was always full of food she’d never seen before, food that had kept Anne full for days, and something about being asked to sit at the same table of the Queen and King was a little bit thrilling, despite all the casual meetings Anne had with them in the past. Sometimes, she still has dreams about it all, about the low candlelight of the dining room and the people who swiftly bring food in at the blink of an eye. The whole scene always felt like something out of a book or a fairy tale, something Anne always wanted to write down.

The Queen looks down at the two girls for a moment, and just when it seems like she’s going to relent, she goes, “But sweetheart, we have _guests_ over –”

“Anne has already met Prince Gilbert! They got along swimmingly.” Diana smiles to sell the deal and Anne tries not to look impressed at her deceit.

Her mother tilts her head for a moment in thought, like she’s figuring out ways she might be able to grind Diana’s harsh stubbornness down until it becomes reasonable, but then Minnie May bounces up behind her and starts tugging on her skirt, begging for attention.

“Minnie May, I’ll be there in a second,” the Queen says as she leans down toward her daughter, but Minnie May whines, _Pleaaasee Mamaaaaa,_ and the Queen pinches the bridge of her nose before she lets out a long, slithering sigh. “Yes! Anne can come. Make sure she’s dressed appropriately.” She leaves with a pointed look at the two of them, and then follows Minnie May out into the hallway.

Diana turns back around to Anne with a squeal. “Oh, this will be so wonderful! We’re having duck _confit_ for dinner and you’ll positively _love_ it.”

Anne smiles and nods, pretending like she knows what that French word means at all. “It surely sounds wonderful.”

Diana looks at her, tapping a finger to her lips as she assesses Anne’s outfit. Anne tucks a few hairs that have gotten loose from her braids and pretends she doesn’t feel self conscious at being assessed so plainly. “I believe I have an old dress or two that might fit you! Oh, we’ll have to go get Mary Joe…”

Diana heaves herself and her skirt off of the floor. When she grabs Anne’s limp arm to pull her up, Anne just sighs dramatically and stays a heavy weight on the floor until Diana threatens to tickle her.

“Oh alright,” Anne concedes as she gets up onto her feet, “But we’ll have to brush the dirt out of my hair first.”

  
  
  


The two of them end up looking like a matched pair of dolls once they’re ready for dinner. Mary Joe fits Anne into a white, flowy thing that Diana hasn’t worn in years, and she does their hair in the same updo and paints pink onto their cheeks. 

As they walk down the halls, heading toward the dining room, Anne twirls and twirls around, the material of the dress light enough for her to do so. Diana watches on fondly as Anne makes herself dizzy, and it’s only when she lets out a sharp gasp does she reach out to pull Anne back roughly. 

“Anne!” Diana exclaims, and when Anne turns back to look at what all the fuss is about, she finds Gilbert standing in the hallway, seemingly just exited out of one of the rooms and on his way to dinner, too. “You almost ran into him!” Diana says with nervous laughter.

Gilbert just nods at both of them politely. “You both look very nice,” he comments, and Anne hears Diana giggle from behind her.

“Thank you, Prince Gilbert.” She says, all prim and proper, the way Anne has never learned to be.

There’s a beat of silence and then Diana pinches Anne on the waist. Anne goes, “Ouch!” and then at Diana’s pointed look she turns back to Gilbert and mumbles, “Thanks.”

Her eyes linger on him for a brief moment. He looks much more put together than he had been earlier in the day: his curls have been tamed somewhat or at least encouraged into an agreeable shape, and he’s wearing a doublet that fits him well, makes him seem lean and tall, boyish in all the right ways. The whole thing has him looking like a completely different boy than the who stood barefoot in the grass this morning, more like the prince Anne thought she might be meeting.

“Are you okay?” Gilbert asks, and Anne realizes with a start that he’s addressing _her_ and not Diana. “From your fall I mean.”

Anne’s face turns red at the memory of her incident. “Yes,” she says, “Girls aren’t so delicate that one measly fall will kill them, you know.” The truth is that she has a bruise the size of the country on the side of her thigh, one she knows will certainly turn purple and blue in the middle, and it brings a tender burst of pain to her any time she leans against something, but she’s certainly not about to tell him this.

Diana immediately admonishes her with a scandalized whisper from behind. “ _Anne._ ”

Gilbert just tilts his head, somehow both confused and amused at Anne's annoyance. “Sorry – I just wanted to make sure,” he says. “Next time you fall, I’ll remember to leave you alone and face down in the grass.” There’s a hint of laughter in his voice, and it’s obvious, even to Anne, that he’s teasing her, but somehow this just makes her more annoyed.

She frowns and narrows her eyes across at him, but before she can direct anything particularly scathing his way, Diana clears her throat and walks up to him. “Are you heading toward dinner, Prince Gilbert?”

When Gilbert’s eyes snap back down to Diana, something changes in him. His shoulders steady and straighten and his charming smile comes back so easily. “Yes, I am. Shall I escort you two?”

Diana smiles, perfectly ladylike. “That would be _wonderful_.”

He extends his arm out for her to take and she does, gracefully slipping her arm into his. Then the two of them look back at Anne expectantly. Diana’s expression is practically pleading.

Anne doesn’t understand why Gilbert has to escort them a few dozen feet down the hall, why they can’t just walk there by themselves like they’d already been doing, but she knows it’s just one of those royal things that don’t make sense to her. There are a lot of them. When Anne was younger she used to marvel at the fantasy of princess life, but when she’d met it face-to-face, half it never really made sense to her.

Anne walks to the other side of Gilbert and a little reluctantly takes his other arm. It feels uncomfortable to be so close to a boy she doesn’t know as they walk down the halls of the castle, especially when Diana and Gilbert start to have their own conversation turned away from her. Anne can’t tell what they’re speaking about, only that it makes Diana laugh every once in a while. Instead, Anne turns away from them and admires the ornate paintings that are hung on the wall as they pass them by, pretending not to be bothered by the whole situation.

The rest of the night feels like a continuation of that moment. It feels like Anne has entered the stage play of Diana’s life with everyone else playing along in their roles so easily and Anne sits, unsure what she’s supposed to do or what to say. Everyone is on their best behavior at dinner, even Minnie May, who is continually reminded with pointed looks from her mother to keep her posture straight and tall. Anne tries her best to be royal and gracious, which for her means shutting up and never letting her mouth open the whole meal, lest a string of embarrassing things fall out.

Nobody notices her, though, because they’re all so focused on talking to Gilbert. Truthfully, Anne doesn't find him all that exciting, but the Queen and King spend the entire dinner asking him all about the city he comes from, what it’s like there, what the people are like, how his father is. Diana looks as though she is hanging on to every last word he utters, her eyes bright and trained on him, and Anne is absolutely confused by all of it.

“At home you can see the ocean from the castle windows, all the ships docking or just about to leave for voyage.” Gilbert tells the table, a happy smile on his face as he bites into a leg of duck. Minnie May gives an excited gasp at the thought of this seaside world.

“That sounds beautiful!” Diana exclaims happily. “It’s too bad the sea is a few hours ride away for us, but at least we have the surrounding mountains and forests. That’s where Anne lives, actually!”

Anne is surprised to have her name be brought up in conversation at all, especially by Diana, who has only had eyes for Gilbert this whole evening. She looks up from her food tentatively, suddenly aware that all eyes at the table are on her.

Gilbert turns toward her, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “You don’t live in the city?”

Anne shakes her head. “No – I live in a little farm town down south.”

“Anne has cows and pigs and horses!” Minnie May tells Gilbert with a pleased smile on her face.

He grins at Minnie May, his gaze flickering back at Anne for a moment. “Does she?”

“I live on a farm called Green Gables. We _do_ in fact have cows, pigs, horses, _and_ chickens, Minnie May is right.” She gives him a tight smile before she looks back down at her plate nervously. It seems weird to discuss those aspects of her life with people who know nothing about farming or rural life, like some part of her is on display for their amusement. Usually it’s fine with Diana, when Diana doesn’t seem like so much of a stranger.

“The people of Avonlea do good work for our country – especially Anne’s family at Green Gables!” The King declares from the head of the table with an easy smile. It’s not hard to tell he’s on his third cup of wine.

“Thank you,” Anne says, nodding her head graciously.

“It sounds wonderful,” Gilbert agrees, smiling at Anne, “I’d love to travel around all of Carmody, someday, if I have the time.”

Anne just pushes her food around her plate without reply, wondering how sincere he really is. She’s thankful that the conversation soon peters out easily into something else, something that allows Anne to be pushed to the background once again, left to sat and eat away at her food.

Gilbert never looks her way for the rest of the night and neither does Diana. They only look at one another, quick glances between conversation and Diana’s cheeks flushing red under the pink that Mary Joe had powdered onto them before.

Anne’s not sure why this bothers her so much, but it does, and it leaves a heavy weight at the bottom of her stomach that’s definitely not from her meal.

  
  
  


Anne tries to quickly tug her dress off in Diana’s room after dinner, eager to wipe this blusher away from her face and make a spirited dash toward the center of town where she knows Matthew will be waiting for her. Diana sits on the edge of her bed a few feet away from Anne, her hands delicately placed in her lap, making no haste to go through the process of undressing like Anne currently is.

Diana comments idly, “He’s nice. Prince Gilbert.” 

“Nice enough,” Anne replies with a scoff, searching madly around the room for her stockings, “I suppose.” She sticks her tongue out in focus as she tries to tug on her stockings without getting a rip in them.

“Anne.”

Anne whips her head up to see Diana looking at her nervously, her hands clasped together too tightly. Even in the low candlelight, Anne can see that something’s off in her expression.

“Diana?” She asks gently, smoothing her stockings out.

There’s a beat where Diana doesn’t say anything, she just keeps her mouth pressed into a thin, flat line, and then her eyes shine urgently across at Anne. She rushes out, “My parents want me to marry him.”

Anne’s breath is immediately stolen from her. “What?” She asks uselessly.

“That’s why he’s here, why he’s even visiting in the first place. It’s supposed to be a secret, but I couldn't go any longer without telling you.” The silence of the night fills their ears, the only sound puncturing the moment are the owls in the trees outside. “It would be a good arrangement,” Diana assures Anne hurriedly, in that voice she uses when she’s just parroting back phrases and words someone else has told her, “It would be good for both our kingdoms, profitable and economical.”

Anne stands still for a moment, like she thinks Diana will leap up and tell her it’s all a joke, but it doesn’t happen. She gives a funny laugh. “You’re going to say no, right?” Diana waits a beat too long to reply and Anne gasps, “ _Diana_ –”

Diana barrels on. “He is rather handsome, and he’s smart and kind, and Mother and Father like him, and –”

“But –”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.” Diana says, her voice high and shrill, and her eyes flick up to look at Anne.

“Wouldn’t be so bad?” Anne echos, halfway to hysterical in seconds, “It wouldn’t be so bad if you married a boy of a different land and he took you away from me? If we never saw each other again?” 

Diana’s face falls into a frown, her dark eyebrows furrowed together and a redness coming to her cheeks. “I didn’t mean it like _that,_ ” she says thickly. “I just meant… it was always going to happen anyway, wasn’t it? I was always going to have to marry someone, and he’s a nice boy –”

Anne scoffs. “I think that your future husband should check more boxes than just _nice boy_ –” 

Diana’s eyes flash in frustration. “Anne, my seventeenth birthday is just around the corner and if I’m _not_ married by eighteen, my parents and the whole kingdom would consider that a disgrace.”

Anne’s chest burns hot white with betrayal at Diana’s words, even if they are true, even if they are not really _Diana’s_ words but instead things that have been sewn into her brain since she was born. It feels like they had only just met and been allowed to be children together, and now Diana was expected to be a wife. Anne bristles at the thought of having to give Diana up, of having to watch her leave just so she can marry some _boy_.

Through the open window of Diana’s room, they hear the distant ringing of the city clock tower marking an hour. Anne can barely collect herself at the information Diana’s spewing, but she knows sharply that sound means she’s late to meet Matthew already, that he’ll worry terribly about her if she doesn’t make it in the next several minutes, and Anne knows it will take a good run to get there in time.

A stark moment of silence passes between them, and somehow it feels louder than any declaration that’s been said so far.

Anne swallows thickly, trying to tame the sudden onslaught of sorrow and disbelief that clogs her throat. “I’m – I’ve got to go and meet Matthew. I’m already late as it is.”

Diana nods quickly and curtly, understanding that the time for conversation is over. It seems that she has a hard time looking Anne in the eyes as she leaves. “I’ll see you next week?” Her voice is hopeful as Anne rises to gather her things.

Anne nods. “Of course.” She tries for a smile, but it feels tight on her face. “We’ll – we can talk about this more, then?” Her voice sounds small when it comes from her mouth and she hates it.

Diana nods once, but Anne knows her well enough to see the hurt and frustration plain on her face. The air of, _what else is there to talk about_?

They don’t even hug as Anne leaves. Diana just watches her go, a smile on her face that barely reaches her eyes, and Anne tries to push the stinging hurt all the way down, tries to pretend it isn’t there.

She runs through the winding city streets, the moon shining down at her, huffing and puffing. She’s so stuck in her thoughts of Diana and that stupid, _stupid_ boy that she almost runs into several walls as well as a few people along the way. She wants to turn back around and storm into Diana’s room, say, _I’m sorry, but please don’t go._ She wants to find where Gilbert’s sleeping and scare him in the night until he leaves and goes back to his own castle. She wants the sudden, impending future to be gone. She wants the whole night to have been a terrible dream.

When she finds Matthew waiting for her in the city square that night, sitting patiently on top of the wagon with empty cartons and crates loaded in the back, Anne runs toward him eagerly.

“Oh,” is all that Matthew says at first when Anne buries her face in the wool of his coat and wraps herself tightly around his torso, “Oh, dear.”

She doesn’t tell him what’s happened and Matthew doesn’t ask. He just hugs her back and rocks her gently from side to side for a moment. His coat smells of flowers and wheat, things that remind Anne of home, and she wraps herself around him tighter and tighter like it will help her catch her breath.

Matthew lets her rest her head on his shoulder the whole bumpy ride home, and they listen to the crickets as they go, the endless night surrounding them, feeling much like the sadness that surrounds Anne's heart.

She looks up at the sky, examines all the stars and tries to count them once, twice, three times over, before she gives up and just stares at the twinkling lights, wondering how the world can make her feel so helpless, sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise the slow descent of anne/gilb madness happens soon
> 
> i'm on tumblr [@boosfic](https://boosfic.tumblr.com/) !


	2. Chapter 2

Diana sends her a letter that week in a crisp, white envelope with a small bunch of picked flowers stuck in the wax seal. Anne’s heart jumps into her throat at the sight of it, and she doesn't think she has ever ripped open an envelope so fast in her entire life.

_Dear Anne Shirley-Cuthbert,_

_Although we have only been without each other for a few days, I cannot get the sour taste of our last moments together out of my mouth. I should not have sprung the news on you in the way that I did. Truth be told, I was just nervous about it myself. The idea that I’ve broken your heart and made you believe that I wanted to leave you behind makes me sick. I hope you understand that if it were up to me, the two of us would travel everywhere together until we were old and wrinkly._

_Gilbert is still here. The engagement is still being discussed and decided in secret between our parents, and so the two of us act as if we don’t know what’s going on. I believe Mother and Father want him to ask for my hand after my birthday in several weeks, so I imagine he will be staying with us until then._

_If you’ll have me, I would still love for you to come visit this weekend like we discussed._

_Yours always,_

_Princess Diana Barry_

Anne reads the written words intently as she sits perched upon the wooden pasture fence of Green Gables, the sun warming her bones. Upon finishing the letter, she holds the parchment carefully to the plane of her chest, like perhaps she could soak the words into her skin.

“Has the Princess invited you for tea and scones?” Jerry asks in some horrible imitation of a proper accent. He’s currently stuck in coveralls cleaning the horse troth, a chore Anne is thankful she does not have to do..

Anne sticks her tongue out at him childishly. “Jerry! I’ll have you know that Diana and I are currently in the process of being separated _forever._ Your teasing will do nothing to douse the flames that alight in my heart upon receiving this letter.”

Jerry stops his work for a moment to look at her with confusion. “Is that why you have acted like the world was ending since the start of the week?”

“My world _is_ ending, Jerry," she argues with a frown. "There’s a boy who’s come to stay at Diana’s castle. A prince.” Anne says these words ruefully, like a prince is the worst thing to be.

Jerry raises his eyebrows up and down in a teasing motion. “Has he come to sweep your sweet Diana off of her feet?”

Anne crosses her arms across her chest indignantly. “Yes, and it’s terrible.”

“You’re not happy for her?” Jerry asks, crouching back down to scrub the metal troth.

Anne is disgusted at the thought. “Why should I be?”

He shrugs. “Marriage is a wonderful thing.”

“Well – when you _love_ the person, yes. But she doesn’t love him. She barely knows him!”

“Some people do not get the fortune to end up with the people they love,” Jerry says thoughtfully, “Maybe it is enough to just wish for someone who is kind.”

Anne frowns, ruminating on this. Gilbert hadn’t seemed _unkind_ necessarily - although Anne did think him a little rude - but that didn't mean he was the right fit for Diana. She _is_ the princess of a whole kingdom, after all. Shouldn't that entitle her to more suitors? Aren’t they people lining up to fall at her feet? Surely she could spend time getting to know a boy first before trying to get _married._

She sits and thinks as Jerry works, the spring wind tousling her braids. A smile unfurls on her face after a moment, one so devious that Jerry is already sighing. “You know what – when I go to see her this week, I’ll test Gilbert to see if he is worthy of someone as golden as Diana.” Anne says while nodding, decidedly satisfied at her plan. “I’ll see if he’s a true gentleman, someone kind and brave and adventurous, of course. If he is going to marry her, he’ll have to be adventurous – Diana needs someone to push her, sometimes.”

Jerry looks up at Anne like she might be a little insane. “Do you not trust her parents to know who’s a good match for their –”

“No, I do not! The King and Queen are good people, but their decisions, too, must be vetted.”

Jerry tries to keep himself from laughing at Anne’s ridiculousness. “Alright then,” he says, shaking his head, “Tell me how it goes.”

“I will,” she nods, and then she pauses for a moment, “Jerry – don’t go and tell the world that a prince has arrived at the castle, you know? I’m not sure Diana would so quickly forgive me if I let the whole of Avonlea know about her arrangement.”

Jerry just rolls his eyes. “Anne, you have no faith in me. And who would I tell, anyway? The horses?”

"I'll have you know, Belle has been my number one confidant since I moved to Green Gables."

Jerry laughs and shakes his head fondly at her once again. "Next time you come home from school and cry to me, _Oh, the girls did this,_ or, _Boys are so mean,_ I will direct you to the stables, then."

When he stands up and walks away from her to go fill buckets of water, Anne calls to him, "Jerry, you are my number _two_ confidant!" 

The sound of his laugh echos back to her in the wind.

Gilbert fails spectacularly at Anne’s test.

That next Sunday Anne shows up to see Diana and immediately demands that she wear her best dress and put on layers of pink blusher for them to spend the afternoon in the library, the part of the castle where Diana says Gilbert hangs out the most. Diana, surprised at Anne’s assertion, does so without complaint. She just seems grateful Anne hasn’t barged into her room, ready to rehash the conversation they never got to finish last week, and so she nods along eagerly to anything Anne starts to suggest.

Sure enough, Gilbert is in the library when they walk in that day, lounging on a couch near the large, open windows, nose-deep in an worn hardcover book. He looks up at their entrance with raised eyebrows.

“Princess Diana,” he says, bowing his head toward her, and then looking at Anne with a surprise that Anne almost mistakes as delight upon seeing her again, “And Anne – we meet once more.”

Both girls offer their greetings, even Anne who gives him a polite and proper wave, and then she nudges Diana toward the couch as she herself makes busy to look among the bookshelves.

As she studies the spines of cracked, old hardcovers and chapbooks, she hears Diana clear her throat and ask, “What are you reading today, Prince Gilbert?” Anne tries not to laugh as she listens to how different Diana's voice sounds when she's talking to Gilbert. It's much higher and there's a girlish lilt that is nonexistent when she talks to Anne.

“Just a play,” Gilbert says and shows her the cover, “It’s one of my favorites, so I was happy to see it on your library shelf.”

“Oh! How wonderful.”

Silence. Anne looks back at the pair to see them smile at each other awkwardly, and then Gilbert ducks his head and goes back to reading. Diana shoots Anne a panicked look. Anne sighs and makes her way toward them, plopping herself down next to Diana on the velvety couch.

“Diana, you look awfully beautiful today,” Anne tells her with a wink, and then looks toward the opposite end of the couch. “Wouldn’t you agree, Prince Gilbert?”

Gilbert shifts his book down a little bit to reveal the shape of his eyes and the bridge of his nose. If Anne looks hard enough, she can just see a sprinkle of light freckles on his face from the sun. He studies both girls for a moment. “Yes, you look lovely, Diana,” he agrees casually, without much more passion than the average person, and then goes back to reading.

Diana smiles at his response and looks down at her feet, a pink flush high on her cheeks, but Anne is not satisfied. “I mean, she looks absolutely _rapturous._ I don’t know how you don’t have suitors lining up out the doors of the castle!”

Diana giggles in embarrassment, though there is a fondness that creeps through. “Alright, Anne, thank you.”

“I’m serious,” Anne replies, “Every single man in this country should be ready to get down on his knees for you with a ring securely in his pocket at all times, lest you come walking by down the street and he’s unprepared.” 

This startles laughter out of Diana. “You’re truly ridiculous.”

“I only speak the truth, the things everybody knows,” Anne then turns back toward Gilbert, who seems completely tuned out of this entire conversation, “Don’t you agree with me, Gilbert?” 

Diana tugs on Anne’s sleeve and hisses quietly, “ _Anne.”_

“ _P_ _rince_ Gilbert,” Anne corrects, an assured smile on her face.

One of Gilbert’s eyes peeks over the top of his hardcover again. “That would be an awful lot of rings. Your blacksmiths would be ensured with work for ages.”

Diana giggles easily, but Anne frowns. “Well, only the finest man with the finest ring would be acceptable enough, don’t you think?” Anne turns to poke Diana in the cheek playfully, “A princess of your worth deserves only the best.”

Diana rolls her eyes. She whispers, “Oh, Anne, that’s enough. Let’s leave him alone,” but if they leave him alone at this rate, Gilbert will have no chance in deserving to marry Diana. He’s said absolutely nothing so far to convince Anne that he has any redeemable qualities; the _least_ he could be doing right now is promptly throwing himself at Diana’s feet and admiring her beauty.

“Why don’t we go out to the garden,“ Anne suggests, and then loudly asks, “Would you like to join us?” She casts her hard gaze toward Gilbert, hoping he’ll shrivel under it and follow her lead.

Gilbert just blinks at her, unbothered. “If it’s alright with you ladies, I’m quite comfortable here. Maybe I’ll meet you there later?” He offers, but Anne _knows_ it’s a cop out.

She huffs, thinking of ways she can attempt to goad him along, when suddenly Diana’s tutor appears in the doorway of the library unannounced. “Oh Princess!” He calls toward them, catching all three of their attentions, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. We had a session scheduled today at two o’clock!”

Diana stands up fast, her frills and curls all ruffled. “Monsieur! I’m so sorry, I’d forgotten.” She casts an apologetic look back at Anne, but Anne just minutely shakes her head and gestures for her to go. Diana starts toward him. “Let us go to the foyer! I apologize again that I kept you waiting.”

Diana’s tutor, a cheerful older man who had always been jovial to Anne, gives a laugh. “Nonsense, I don’t mind. My, you look quite done up today. What’s the occasion?”

Anne hears Diana’s fading voice respond, “Oh, um, no reason in particular,” and sighs.

The pendulum clock in the corner ticks resolutely, puncturing the silence with its beat. Anne sits awkwardly in place for a moment, thinking of how to proceed in this situation now. She turns back toward Gilbert. His gaze is hidden away into the pages of his book, unbothered by anything going on around him, and Anne purses her lips, taking a moment to assess him. His fingers that hold the cover are not long and dainty like she might expect a prince to be, instead they look like hers or Jerry’s, a bit stubby, nails short and cropped, like worker’s hands. The sleeves of his cotton shirt are rolled to his elbows and Anne can see how strong they seem to be, strong and a little tan.

A cloud that must have been hanging over the sun shifts, and in the next second the room is flooded with light, turning everything as warm as honey instead of shadowy and blue as it had been before. It shines on Gilbert’s curls, making them look thick and well-cut. Gilbert moves to the next page, the crisp sound of paper turning, and Anne catches a glimpse of his face in the movement, focused and calm, his lips red from being bitten in concentration while reading.

There’s something about him, about the way he sprawls on the couch with his legs up, about the way the mop of his curls fall just into his eyes, about the way his shoulders sit broadly against the arm rest, that Anne finds charmingly boyish in that moment, and it surprises her. Somehow, Gilbert has managed to look homely in a place where nobody else would ever dare to kick their feet up onto the cushions and spend a whole lazy day reading until their eyes get tired.

Anne thinks that if every day is like that where Gilbert is from, perhaps she would like to go visit.

She clears her throat to catch the boy’s attention and settles back into the cushions. “Have you enjoyed your stay in the castle so far, Prince Gilbert?”

She hears Gilbert give the smallest of sighs, like he finally realizes he can’t just run away from Anne and all her insistent talking by looking like he's busy, and then puts down his reading, placing it on his stomach so that it keeps the page. “It’s been wonderful.” He says politely. “The food is great, this castle is beautiful, and I’m sure the surrounding city is beautiful, although I haven’t gotten to explore it much.” It seems like a pre-prepared answer, the same thing he’s been telling anyone who asks, but Anne doesn’t want that.

“And the company?” She asks with one eyebrow raised expectantly.

Gilbert gives her a knowing look. “The company has also been wonderful.” He says simply.

Anne narrows her eyes at him, and her gaze catches on the book in Gilbert’s lap. She pipes up with, “Diana likes books too, you know,” and then sighs, “But they are often French philosophers I don’t understand or French poetry I have to get her to translate for me.”

Gilbert smiles, seemingly endeared Anne’s attempts to not-so-casually push the conversation toward Diana, and nods. “Yes, we’ve discussed her love of French poetry.”

Anne is delighted at the thought of Diana winning Gilbert’s affections through her pursuit of knowledge. “You have?”

“A bit.” Gilbert tilts his head and rubs the back of his neck. “She’s rather shy.”

Anne narrows her eyes at him. “Well, _I_ think she’s a rather smart and educated girl.” She argues.

Gilbert nods easily. “She is _also_ those things _,_ yes.” He agrees, and for a moment, Anne waits for something else. Perhaps his deep confession of love for Diana, his fondness for her and the little silk bows she likes to wear, but nothing comes and Gilbert stays silent.

Anne deflates in her seat, unimpressed at his lackluster. She wonders if anyone has ever taught this boy courting etiquette or if he has ever picked up a romance book to learn from.

It’s then that Anne’s best idea strikes her. “I think you should read some of Diana’s favorite books!” She exclaims suddenly, the plan coming to her all at once. “This room is full of them, you know.”

Anne gets up and makes her way to one of the bookshelves without worrying about whether Gilbert will follow her or not. Her thoughts are absorbed in how she knows Diana will _surely_ thank her for this; she and Gilbert will have an infinite number of things to talk about now, and then perhaps she’ll fall in love with him slowly and Anne won’t feel so sad about letting her go, not if it’s to live with the man of her dreams.

Anne stares up at the tall bookcases for a moment before grabbing a nearby ladder and leaning it against the wood. She starts to climb, a self-satisfied smile on her face. She can imagine all the scenes of Diana and Gilbert’s impending romance like something out of a story she’d write: the slow garden walks where the two of them talk about literature, Gilbert says how he likes a certain line from a poem, how it reminds him of Diana, and Diana will giggle and look away, until suddenly they’re swapping book recommendations and Gilbert is leaving her notes, beautiful, romantic ones in between the book pages that Diana replies to in her perfect penmanship, and then all at once they’ve both realized that they’ve fallen in love, just in time for Diana’s birthday.

“...Anne?” Gilbert’s gotten up from his seat and is standing on the ground below her, looking up at her like she’s a bit insane. “Why don’t we do this later –”

“No, it’s fine!” Anne calls down to him. “I’ve just got to find the right book.” 

She hums thoughtfully, searching the shelves for novels and plays she knows Diana loves, her eyes scanning the spines until they finally land on one from the shelf below: a thickly bound book of poems well-loved by Diana. 

Anne lets out a triumphant, “Aha!” and reaches for it. It requires quite the stretch, but her fingers snag against the top of the spine and she hooks them on the material there. It’s only when she tries to tug it out from its novel neighbors does she realize that book packed too tightly in the shelf. Anne frowns, tries tugging it out again, but it still doesn’t release.

From the ground, Gilbert starts, “Here, let me –” but Anne just tugs harder, too hard, and then suddenly she’s losing her balance and the one hand that had been loosely holding onto a ladder rung is slipping away from the wood, the force of gravity pulling her down straight toward the floor.

She tumbles backwards. The feeling of weightlessness envelops her for a second, and she surely thinks that this will be it, that God above is trying to punish her and bring her to the afterlife by having her fall from heights like this two times in one week, but then she – quite literally – falls into Gilbert’s arms.

He’s quick to catch her, one arm supporting her back and one arm under her legs, and then suddenly Anne is face-to-face with this wide-eyed boy who looks down at her with a blanched expression.

Gilbert immediately lets out a breath of relief. “Glad I could catch you this time,” he says with a shaky little laugh, his eyes searching all around her face.

Anne feels her cheeks go red as she looks up at him, horrified. “I –”

"Are you okay?" He asks, his eyebrows pulled together in concern for her, and Anne is suddenly struck by the thought of how close they are to one another. The splatter of freckles on his nose that she'd noticed sitting on the couch are now so close that all Anne can think of is how they remind her of sea spray.

She tries to ask, "Would you let me down?" but it comes out as much more of a squeak.

He does as she asks, dropping her feet to the floor first. As soon as Anne has her bearings, she turns away from him and buries her face in her hands. This is truly the worst thing to have happened to her, she thinks. She could have handled falling to the floor and ascending to Heaven, but she cannot handle the embarrassment of this terrible boy saving her life – _and_ seeing her fall once again. Just another thing for him to tease her about.

She uncovers her face to find that the book that had almost cost her life is lying flat on the floor, undamaged from its fall. She kneels down to pick it up, and then turns around quickly to shove it at Gilbert. “Here – take it."

She fumbles it into his hands without looking him in the eyes and Gilbert lets her do it. “Are you hurt at all –”

“I’m fine.” She tells him, whipping her face up to look him in the eyes. She tries to regain an air of confidence as she puts her hands on her hips and points to the book. “You better read that now, especially since I went to all the trouble of almost dying to get it for you –”

Gilbert’s expression turns exasperated. “You wouldn’t have _died_ –”

She argues, "I could have very well broken my spine, you don’t know –”

“I _do_ know. You really didn’t fall from that high. In fact, you probably fell from higher when you tumbled off the top of the wall –”

“Alright, Mr. Know-It-All –”

“I’m just saying –”

“Alright!” Anne huffs and immediately swivels away from him, her face still stupidly red. “If Diana comes searching for me, tell her that I’ll be resting in her personal quarters.”

Gilbert watches her go for a beat before he calls to her, “You can stay if you want, you know – I didn’t mean to drive you off.” She looks behind her shoulder at him, and he gives her a tentative smile. It would almost seem like an act of kindness if Anne bought into his charm at all. “I promise I won’t bother you anymore –”

“Thank you, but I’d rather sit in silence.” She tells him firmly, and then walks out the door of the library.

Perhaps a little guilt settles within her at how harshly her words came off. Perhaps she thinks about turning around once or twice out of embarrassment, an urge inside her to storm back into the library and prove to Gilbert that she's not just a clumsy mess of a girl, but she's not sure what she would even say. They're fleeting thoughts, anyway, ones she easily swallows down with her stubbornness.

Instead, she continues down the winding halls of the castle and lets herself into Diana’s bedroom, a pocket of comfort against the rest of the world.

It’s a room that Anne’s been in so many times over the past two years, but still will never get over its beauty; the silk blue sheets that tumble off the four-poster bed, the silver and white ornate furniture that litters the room, the open wardrobe that has the edges of dresses peaking out, white and blue and pale pink, all made with fabrics Anne dreams of touching.

Anne tugs her shoes off as she walks past all these things, and then lays down on Diana’s bed with a huff, spreading out her arms and legs luxuriously. She stares at the pale blue sky that's painted on the ceiling and frowns, imagining what she’ll say to Diana when she tumbles into the room. _I have grave news, sweet Diana. The boy you’re set to marry is very rude – yes, very rude! Even though he caught me from falling to my death, practically anyone with eyes, arms, and good reflexes could do that – and he certainly failed my test. I think that your parents should find someone who is much kinder and much smarter and much lovelier who deserves you in all the right ways and won’t take you away from me so soon._

She curls in on herself, bunching up the smooth fabric of Diana’s duvet in her hands. The afternoon sun presses through the bedroom's French doors to warm Anne just enough that she is lulled into a sleepy sort of calm. She feels herself sink into the mattress, and, as an accidental wave of sleep washes over her, all the anger she’d felt in the library starts to dissipate. Anne replaces the feelings with daydreams of the life she longs for where her and Diana get to live as girls forever in their youth, travelling around the world without a care in the world, only with each other at their sides until years later when they marry and have families much older and decide live next to each other, making their husbands and children be best friends.

It’s a childish, unrealistic dream, one she would never fully spell out to anyone if they asked, but it is a wonderful one.

  
  


It’s dark outside when Anne wakes up.

The room seems almost pitch black to her at first, and it’s not until she blinks a few times do the shadowy shapes of Diana’s furniture start to come into vision and her sleepiness fades away.

Anne sits up with a start, suddenly wondering if she’s slept too late to meet Matthew in the city, if he’s worried about her, where everyone in the castle is, why Diana or someone didn’t wake her up.

She’s a flurry of action as she tumbles off the bed and onto the ground, grabbing her shoes and slipping them on, reaching for her bag. This will be the second week in a row she’s been late for Matthew. She worries suddenly that Marilla will stop letting her go with him into the city if they keep getting home a half an hour after they said they would. Panic alights in her heart as she groggily steps out and into the long hallways of the castle, calling out, “Hello? Diana?” and hoping someone might hear her.

The sounds of her boots echo all around her as she walks, making the castle seem so much emptier than she knows it must be. She checks the dining room first, but it’s dark and vacant and the table hasn’t even been set yet, and when she sticks her head into the library, it is also still and static, as though all the books have gone to sleep. It takes ten minutes of her stomping around the corridors until she finally hears the low murmur of voices and follows it like a dog on a scent.

The sound leads her to two oak doors, elaborately carved and with warm light glowing from within. Anne’s skin prickles with the distant knowledge of what lies behind them. She’d never been in the room herself, but she’d walked past it one or two times, heard the commotion of voices from outside, and Diana had told her that it was the strategy room or, sometimes in the worst of cases, her parents would call it the war room.

Anne steadies herself with a big breath in and then knocks on the wood. The voices from inside silence, and the door pops open to reveal the face of someone Anne’s seen a few times around the castle, tailing behind the Queen and running her errands.

The man's expression falls dismissively at the sight of Anne. “Oh,” he says shortly, “It’s your redheaded friend, Princess Diana.”

The sound of a chair moving and footsteps against the floor. Diana appears at the doorway, and Anne knows instantly from the way she's holding herself and the tightness of her face that something’s wrong. “Anne,” she breathes out, “I’m so sorry – I forgot to come get you.”

“Is everything okay?” Anne whispers, searching Diana’s face like her expression will explicitly spell it out for her.

Diana’s features just tighten. “It’s –”

The King goes, in a burst from inside of the room, “What do you suggest, then?” Anne can only see a sliver of him, but he’s sitting at the head of the table, his face more serious and grim than Anne’s ever seen it. “We can’t hide him. They _know_ he’s here.”

Someone says, a little desperately, “I can’t go home.” 

It’s Gilbert’s voice. Anne curiously leans into the room more and searches for him. She finds him sat rigid in a chair on the other side of the table. His face is pensive and pinched, full of worry, and in the flickering candle, light he looks sallow and gaunt, like a boy who hasn’t slept for days. “I’ll be –” and then he just stops halfway, his mouth stuck open like the words refuse to come out.

Diana squeezes Anne’s hands in her own. “Someone is trying to stage a coup in Gilbert’s kingdom,” Diana whispers to her urgently, and Anne’s eyes widen. “They’re trying to dethrone him as prince.”

“What? Why?” Anne whispers, the words floating around her head but not really making any sense.

Diana squeezes her hand harder. “His father – the king passed away.”

Anne gasps sharply, and it’s loud enough that everyone hears. Gilbert looks at her, his face harsh and stony, and Anne shrivels under his gaze until he turns his attention back to the matters at hand. Anne squeezes Diana’s hand anxiously, their fingers intertwining.

Gilbert’s saying, “Sebastian will keep things level in the court for a while,” and he’s looking at Diana’s father, urging him to understand, “But he said it was unwise for me to go back right now. It’ll make things worse. They’ll kill me in transit, or they’ll hatch a plot once I arrive. It’s not…” he trails off and just shakes his head, his eyes suddenly clouded over as though he can’t really believe what he’s even saying.

It feels inappropriate for Anne to be privy to his personal problems, things that are so much more serious and life threatening than she’s ever had to face. Her and Diana teeter unsteadily in the doorway of the room, and the man who opened the door for Anne keeps shooting looks at the two of them like he’s going to kick Anne out in a few moments time if she doesn’t choose to leave.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to go meet Matthew soon,” Anne whispers to Diana uselessly, a lump in her throat.

Diana nods in solemn understanding, and then her full body freezes, her eyes go big and wide. She turns to look back into the room. “Mother!” She says urgently, interrupting the tense conversation between Gilbert and the King, “What about Anne? What about the Cuthberts in Avonlea?”

Diana’s mother blinks at her. “Diana, what are you saying –”

“Gilbert could go with Anne!”

The rooms deadens into silence, and the weight of the idea settles into the air. Diana’s father scoffs, “Diana, sweetheart, now is not the time to –”

“It could work.” The Queen says, blinking fast, like she’s sorting through the plan in her head. She turns back toward the table, toward the other people at it, her husband, _Gilbert_ whose eyes are full of unease. “Nobody would think to find you there. Avonlea is a small town, quiet and homely. It’s not a place of major trade or transportation. It’s just far enough off the map to be safe.”

Gilbert stares at her intently. It feels as though Anne can see the fear rising up and off of him like steam. He protests, “No town is _safe_ –”

“Any town is safer than this castle.” The Queen tells him, “This is the first place anyone would look for you. Your father’s court know where you are, but not if you went to Avonlea, and the people there have no idea who _you_ are.”

Gilbert sucks in a breath. “What if they search for me? What if they ask the right people and find me –”

“The only people who would know of your whereabouts would be the people in this room.” She looks around, making pointed eye contact with the few people about – Anne, Diana, Gilbert, the King, the Queen's assistant, and the King’s head supervisor – and then she looks back at Gilbert. “We will have all of them swear to keep your location hidden or there will be consequences”

Diana squeezes Anne’s hand so hard her nails dig into the skin, creating a sharp pain, but in a second she releases. Somehow, Diana finds the courage to speak. “The Cuthberts are good people,” she tells Gilbert, but her voice shakes. “They’ll take care of you.”

The Queen nods, looking at Anne. “They will,” she says confidently.

“Yes,” Anne breathes out, sparing a glance toward Gilbert, who’s face and body is devoid of everything except fear and exhaustion.

He stares back at her hollowly and a shiver runs up and down Anne's spine. Then he looks back toward Diana’s mother. “Alright,” he says, the words quiet, and the whole room seems to breathe out while Anne takes a hitched breath in.

  
  


Anne stands at the front doors of the castle, her fingernails dug into the leather of her satchel strap, and the Queen stands next to her with a rigid spine. Gilbert had been tasked to go get a bag of his things, Diana had been escorted to her quarters, and the King and his disciples were left in the strategy room to mull things over. 

As they both wait for Gilbert, Anne’s thoughts run around in her head, and she can’t help but shift back and forth nervously on her feet. Nothing like this has ever happened to her before, and suddenly the world seems so much darker, so much nastier than it ever had been capable of being.

When she can’t hold it in any longer, Anne turns to Diana’s mother and rushes out all in one breath, “Do you think everything will be alright?”

Diana’s mother tries for a smile, but it’s tired. “Anne, you are a very brave girl.” It’s not an answer to her question, but it’s the nicest thing the Queen has ever said to her. She sighs and hands the heavy envelope she'd been holding toward Anne. It sinks into Anne’s palm with its weight. “Inside is a letter that will explain everything to the Cuthberts, as well as money to pay for Gilbert’s stay.” An apologetic and painful expression flits across her face. “Diana said she told you of the real reason Gilbert is here, but she shouldn’t have, not yet. You cannot share that information with anyone, not even Mr. and Ms. Cuthbert. It would put a target on Diana’s back as well.”

Anne nods quickly, intently listening to every word. “Of course, your majesty, I won’t tell a soul.” She mimes zipping her lips up and throwing away the key, and the action amuses the Queen enough to have her smile for a moment.

She takes Anne’s hands in her own and holds them tightly. “He’s a good boy. Good for Diana. Good for this family. You must protect him.” There is no question in her voice, no choice for Anne to decline, just unwavering firmness.

Somehow it inspires confidence in Anne, dissolving some of the panic and fear that had been flitting around her body. She lifts her chest a little, like she’s physically readying herself to bear the weight of these responsibilities, and she nods once again at the Queen, securing the envelope in her satchel. “I promise that I will. You have my word, Queen Eliza.”

Gilbert enters the entrance hall with a bag around his torso and a cloak tied over his shoulders. Anne can’t read his expression in the dark, though she desperately wants to. She wants to watch every blink of his eye and downturn of his mouth, know what he’s feeling, anxiously feel it all with him, but when he gets closer, she finds that his face is remarkably blank.

Diana’s mother places a careful hand on Gilbert’s shoulders. Anne catches how the action makes him flinch. “We’ll see you soon, Prince Gilbert,” she tells him. “Don’t worry.”

Gilbert just nods, his mouth in a tight, long line, and then he shifts toward Anne. “Are you ready?”

She nods and swallows, leveling Gilbert with a look. “Yes.”

Matthew is quite suspicious when Anne comes along with a hooded figure trailing behind her, but Anne runs up to him before he can do more than frown. She whips out the envelope the Queen gave to her and pushes it into Matthew’s hands with haste.

He reads the letter with a furrowed brow, and then he looks into the envelope and lets out an, “Oh.” He looks up at Anne, and then at Gilbert, who still hasn’t taken the hood of his cloak off. “Anne –”

“We need to go,” Anne whispers urgently, grabbing onto Matthew’s arm. “He needs to leave.”

Matthew blinks, looks between the two of them again, and then unsteadily goes, “Well – ah – okay, okay – alright, get in the back, both of you.”

Gilbert climbs up into the back of the wagon where the empty cartons of that day's sales take up most of the room, and Anne follows after him. The two of them have only just settled when Matthew whips the reins of the horse and has them going at a brisk gallop through the largely empty cobblestone streets of the city. Everyone is inside of their houses, having dinner and warming by the fire, and Anne is sitting in the back of a wooden wagon, smuggling a prince out of the capital.

None of them speak on the journey. The only sound that fills the air is the noise of the horses' hooves hitting against the ground and the occasional bubbling creek they pass by. Other than that, Anne’s ears are filled with the silence of the night. She keeps stealing looks at Gilbert anxiously, like it will help calm her nerves, but Gilbert keeps the hood of his cloak up until they’re well out of the city and into the farmland of the country, halfway to Avonlea. The wind of the night tousles the fabric a little bit too much, causing it to fall and reveal his profile to her. 

He looks white in the moonlight, almost sickly, and she can’t stop staring at him, can’t stop fighting down the urge in her chest to reach out and grab his hand, can’t stop thinking about holding it in her palm and saying, _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry._

But she doesn’t. She just watches him while he watches the moon, the wooden cart rocking from side to side with the bumps and dips of the road, shifting them around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boys we're in it now
> 
> i'm on tumblr [@boosfic](https://boosfic.tumblr.com/) !


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh me? who disappeared for the entire month of june? hello

Gilbert is silent his first few days in Avonlea.

Marilla, after momentarily freaking out at the idea of having to house secret royalty at Green Gables, had put him up in the spare room with fresh sheets, several candles, and the best pillow they had in the house. Gilbert had spent most of his time in that room since; he hadn’t come down for any meals, hadn’t gone outside, hadn’t even really explored the farm.

To Anne’s surprise, Matthew and Marilla say almost nothing about it. Matthew stumbles around the entire idea at first, referring to Gilbert unsurely as “the boy,” often asking Anne if she had seen “the boy” that day or what she knew about “the boy.” Marilla, on the other hand, continued on as if they were living a normal life, not mentioning anything about Gilbert, even though she brought a tray of food and water up to him at every meal. She walked around the house tense though, her body and face never relaxed. Anne caught her reading the Queen’s letter over and over again at the kitchen table during nighttime, the parchment placed in Marilla’s fingers and her mouth pursed tightly.

And Anne never saw Gilbert at all, except for too quick flashes of him as he closed his door when she happened to be in the hallway, or when she was walking on the backside of the house and caught a glimpse of him through the west gable window. 

It was as though a ghost had moved into Green Gables, and he haunted Anne’s mind constantly. She wondered what it meant for Diana, how long he was going to stay. She wondered what he did in that room all day, locked away from the outside world, from the sun. Sometimes she thought about going across the hall and knocking on his door, but something always held her back.

On the fourth day of his stay, Anne walks downstairs to have breakfast and sees the normal sights of the kitchen table, bare and ready for a morning meal, and Marilla bent over a pan sizzling with eggs and ham. 

“Good morning!” Anne says cheerfully, but when Marilla turns around, Anne immediately goes, “Oh no – has something happened?”

Marilla had been looking overwhelmed ever since Gilbert arrived, but this morning she seems especially frazzled. Her eyebrows are drawn together in thought and gray wisps of hair are falling out of her bun, framing her face to make her look like a madwoman. She just shakes her head at Anne and glances toward the window of the kitchen, the one that looks out to the barn and the pasture. “I just don’t know what to make of him.”

Anne steps toward it and sees Matthew and Jerry already at work for the day. She thinks it’s odd for them to start so early, and she’s about to say as much when she realizes with a start that the boy out there is _Gilbert._ Gilbert in his expensive trousers, helping Matthew carry buckets full of feed into the barn.

“He just woke up this morning and asked to help out,” Marilla mumbles, absolutely perplexed, as Anne steps closer to the window, squinting her eyes like it might all just be a trick of the light. Marilla stares down at the pan and mutters, “I hope he doesn’t mind eggs for breakfast. I don’t know what it is that princes eat.”

“Marilla, you’re cooking is stupendous! I’m sure he can handle eating commoner food for a few more days.” Anne says, watching Matthew and Gilbert make their way back to the house.

Marilla shoots her a look. “Anne, I think he might be here longer than a few days –”

The sentence is cut short as Gilbert and Matthew make a ruckus coming through the front door. When Gilbert steps into the kitchen and sees Anne, he gives her a cautious, almost apologetic smile. He looks rough around the edges, but better than she expected, somehow. The lack of sleep is evident on his face, but his eyes seem bright anyway as he nods toward her. “Good morning.”

Matthew comes in from behind him, a smile on his face that surprises Anne with its cheer, and claps an encouraging palm onto Gilbert’s shoulder. “Anne – could you show Gilbert around the farm before you leave for school? Jerry won’t be in today.” 

He says this so casually, as if Gilbert hasn’t suddenly just _appeared_ out of thin air. Anne slowly nods, looking between Matthew and Gilbert wildly as Marilla starts to bring over the sizzling pan of food. “Anne!” She tuts, “Would you set the table please?”

Gilbert is the one to react first. He starts toward the cabinet and says, “I can do that, Miss Cuthbert –”

“Oh, nonsense, it’s Anne’s job. You’re our guest, Prince Gilbert.” Marilla shoots him a polite smile and her voice takes on a light, airy tone that she only uses in front of guests.

As Anne fills her hands with plates and cutlery, she sees Gilbert cringe a little. “Just Gilbert is fine. Really.” He promises with a nod, sitting down at the table bench and shooting an apologetic look at Anne, like he’s really sorry he couldn’t help. 

Anne is absolutely baffled by all of it: Gilbert’s sudden presence, the way Marilla talks cautiously and so politely the whole meal, how Matthew seems quite keen on Gilbert’s help around the farm as though he doesn’t already have both Jerry and Anne. And Anne stays uncharacteristically silent the whole meal, like if she watches them all enough it will start to make sense to her. She cannot shake the way that Gilbert’s existence has suddenly shifted everything in the house, just like it had at Diana’s castle.

When they’re done with breakfast, Anne gives Gilbert a very curt tour, walking about five feet in front of him the whole time and pointing out the places around Green Gables easily: chicken coop, barn, stables, crop field, well, shed. By the time she’s done, she has to herd the cows into the fields behind the house and so Gilbert just comes along with her.

As the two of them stroll through the rolling green plain, they walk in silence with a large gap of space between them, Gilbert with his hands stuck in his pockets, Anne desperately trying to not feel awkward about the entire situation. She watches Gilbert from afar as he walks up to one of the cows roaming around and circles it for a moment cautiously before he looks back at Anne. 

“Can I pet him?”

Anne tries not to laugh at the question. “Of course.”

He reaches his hand out and the cow moves away tentatively, only to come back a moment later to push up into Gilbert’s outstretched palm. “I’ve never been to a farm before,” he says like an explanation, and then looks out to the far-off mountains, the spread of green in front of them, the pine forests and the Lake of Shining Waters. “It’s beautiful out here."

Anne frowns. “They don’t have farms where you’re from?” She asks, bewildered at the idea.

“We do, I’ve just never been out to one.” He smiles down at the cow he’s been petting. It tries to sniff his face and he laughs. 

Anne wonders if, like Diana, he’d been governed by strict rules of where he could and could not go as prince. The thought makes Anne shiver; she cannot imagine living in a castle so high up that it can see all the world around it, but being disallowed to explore any of it. It seems cruel to lock up your own precious royalty forever and ever - especially Gilbert, who now they don’t seem to want back.

Anne studies him for a moment, the way the spring wind tousles his hair. “How can a country not want their own prince?” She blurts out before she can stop herself. The sentence doesn’t come out right, a classic case of Anne Shirley mincing her words, but she struggles to think of the right way to correct her words.

Gilbert doesn’t seem to mind. He turns back around to walk with her down the slanted hill of the pasture, sticking his hands back into his pockets. “It’s not the country – it’s my father’s court.”

Anne frowns again. “They don’t think you’re fit to rule?”

He gives a rueful laugh. “They just want the power for themselves. I mean, it’s perfect for them, isn’t it? My father died while I was out of the kingdom, and that left a gap of power. Why give that back up to a seventeen year old boy?”

“Because it’s your birthright,” she argues for him, but Gilbert just squints out at the rising sun and doesn’t say anything. “Why did your father have people working for him who would do that to you? What kind of –”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

Anne flushes in embarrassment and clenches her fists at her side in a huff. “Sorry I’d like to know more about the boy who’s suddenly staying in my house!”

Gilbert laughs in surprise at her reaction. “It’s not a bad thing!” He argues, but Anne has already turned away from him, taking a more brisk pace on their walk down the hill. He calls to her, “Bash – my father’s advisor – thinks they’ll mellow out soon enough and come to their senses. He’s just worried. Kings have been killed for less, I suppose.”

The morose tone of his voice springs guilt into her chest at bringing the subject up, but she keeps heading down the hill, hearing the crunch of his steps not far behind her. “How did your father die?” She asks, her voice suddenly softer than it had been before. She steps over a down part of the fence Matthew has yet to fix and back into the flat farmland of Green Gables. “They didn’t… kill him, did they?”

Gilbert sighs. “No, he was sick.”

She turns back around to him. “I’m sorry. I know how –”

“It’s alright,” he says immediately, cutting her off so abruptly it shocks her. He shifts from foot to foot awkwardly, like he’d rather talk about anything else. “You’re off to school?” He asks her with bright eyes, like their previous conversation hadn’t been happening at all. Instead, he looks her up and down as though to assess what a country girl might deem appropriate to wear to class. Anne nods at his question, despite how red her face becomes under his gaze. “Your hair looks nice.”

Anne bristles at his compliment and touches the ends of her braids self consciously. The only thing she’d done differently today was tie them with a little bow. Is he trying to butter her up because he knew she wasn't fond of him? Perhaps he’d gotten some inkling that Anne had been talking him down to Diana, discouraging her from marrying him, and he was trying to persuade her approval.

Anne finds it improper for a boy of his stature to be saying things like that to a girl like her, and the thought makes her blush even more. “What a scandalous thing to say to a girl you’ve just met!” She tells him with wide eyes.

Gilbert blinks in shock. “What – I just meant that it looks nice!” He says, baffled and appalled, “I’m not trying to –”

“Oh, save it,” she sniffs at him and turns around in a flurry to hurry back inside the house. “I’ve got to get to school!”

“Anne!” He calls to her back, even as she swiftly enters Green Gables to snag her slate without turning back to look at him once.

Marilla, already preparing for baking pastries that day in the kitchen, turns to Anne with her eyebrows drawn together in bemusement as her daughter stomps around the room. “Was Gilbert shouting for you? Is he alright –”

Anne jolts around the room, grabbing her coat and boots and pack. “He’s fine,” she says without preamble, and then leans up to quickly give Marilla a kiss on the cheek, “I’ll see you this afternoon!”

She sprints out of the front door and toward the start of the trail that will lead her to the schoolhouse before Gilbert even reaches the porch of Green Gables. Even though Anne doesn’t turn back to look, she feels his eyes on her until she disappears into the treeline.

Gilbert, true to his word, takes to doing errands and odd jobs around the farm quite well. He fixes the downed fence Anne had noticed and he learns how to take care of the animals. Some mornings, Anne will wake up and open her window, eager for a large breath of fresh air, only to see Gilbert’s little silhouette in the open barn doorway or perched on the pasture fence, awake far earlier than anyone else in the house.

He gets along with Jerry swimmingly, something Anne doesn’t realize until she gets home from school the next week and spots Matthew working in the fields. She bumbles toward him, excited to tell him about her day and how Miss Stacy has given her extra assigned reading outside of school, but as she gets closer, she hears laughing.

Gilbert’s there, only a row over helping Matthew weed, and next to him is Jerry. Both of them are in boots with their shirts rolled up to their elbows, and Jerry’s face is scrunched up in laughter at something Gilbert’s saying to him. Gilbert grins at him, and Anne can just see the smudge of dirt on his cheek. He looks perfect there, like he’s always lived here, like he belongs. Nothing like a prince, his knees deep in mud and dirt.

Anne frowns at the sight of it all. Jerry never laughs with her like that when she helps out. He only rolls his eyes at her comments and shakes his head like she annoys him, and even when she does try to help out with the more intense chores of the farm, he always tuts at her that she does it wrong. But Gilbert – who had never stepped foot on a farm before last week – somehow manages to do everything right?

“Oh, Anne!” Matthew says cheerfully upon noticing her. When the boys swivel their heads and catch her in the act of mindlessly staring at them, she looks away quickly. “Marilla said there was a letter inside for you from Diana.”

Anne’s chest warms exponentially at the sound of just her name. “Really?” She asks in excitement, and before even receiving an answer she skips off toward the front of the house, thinking about Diana sitting at her vanity in a long, flowing dress, writing to Anne as the light drifts into her room from outside.

As she dashes inside the kitchen and zeros in on the unopened letter on the table, Anne has just enough time to go, “Hi Marilla!” before she’s running upstairs, clutching the envelope in her hand.

“ _Anne!_ ” Marilla yells up at her in annoyance, “You’re tracking mud all over the house! You better clean up later –” and then Anne doesn’t really hear the rest of it because she’s falling onto her bed and tearing the wax sealed envelope open in haste.

Her fingers draw lines over Diana’s inky writing, the way she flicks her letters so sharply up and down in cursive. Even the sight of Diana’s handwriting is enough to make Anne miss her tremendously.

The letter is not all that exciting, simply just a reply to Anne’s from earlier in the week, but she tells Anne that her birthday ball is still on – _Will you invite the girls? Mother said you can bring guests. I am excitedly awaiting their answer_ – and then asks about Gilbert. _The state you’ve described him in has me worried, although I suppose it’s natural he should feel like this in his situation. Goodness, isn’t it all so terrible? Sometimes I feel so selfish as I sit here, planning out the stupid details of this ball, imagining if Gilbert will think I look nice in my dress, and then I remember that his father is …_ (There’s an inky scratch here, where she’s crossed out the word _dead_ as if it held too much weight on the page) … _gone. I long to make him feel better, but he’s too far away from me. You’ll keep him company, won’t you? You’ll make sure he’s okay?_

Anne reads these words and frowns, thinking of how the two of them orbit around each other quite constantly, never getting close enough to touch. Anne doesn’t mind it; she’s not sure what she would even say to Gilbert if she was faced with being alone with him for longer than a minute, and the conversations they have had in the almost two weeks he’s been here had only been short and curt. But everyone else seems to love him and welcome him with open arms for reasons Anne can’t understand. 

She wanders to her window to look out at the edge of the field, as though watching Gilbert work might reveal to her all the answers she’s looking for, but reading the letter has suddenly recharacterized Gilbert in her mind as the boy who’s come to take Diana away from her, not just some kid who’s staying with them for a while. A burst of anger forms in her chest upon seeing his little silhouette weed in the field, and Anne has to look away before it consumes her.

She huffs and flops back onto her bed, snatching up the piece of paper to hold above herself. The next few sentences are the last of the letter. _Even though I’ve only known Gilbert a few weeks, I’m shocked by how much I miss him. The castle feels a little emptier without his presence. I’m excited to see him again after all of this and remember the warmth of his face._

At the end, like an addendum, is, _I miss you too, of course. Write to me soon, won’t you?_

It finishes with Diana’s signature and an inky heart next to it, meant for Anne even though it doesn’t feel like it. Diana hadn’t said anything in the letter about the next time Anne might be able to visit her, if she was still allowed to, hadn’t such much about anything at all beside Gilbert.

Anne lets the paper drift to the floor. She lies on her back and stares up at the ceiling, suddenly feeling the terrible weight of Gilbert’s presence bearing down on her chest, making it hard for her to breathe. It’s not that she hadn’t remembered what Gilbert had traveled here for in the first place, it’s just that she had thought maybe plans would change considering everything going on in Gilbert’s life, maybe he would want to go home first and settle everything before he started claiming a wife.

The thoughts makes Anne’s blood run cold, and she pushes it out of her mind as she brings herself up and out of bed, bounding downstairs loudly in her boots. 

When Marilla yells at her again about the mud, she's thankful for the distraction.

“Girls, I have something –”

“Ruby!” Jane admonishes, cutting Anne off. Jane reaches across their circle to flick Ruby in the shoulder.

“Ow! What?” Ruby whines, rubbing her arm.

“Stop swiping your fingers in the honey pot! It’s disgusting.” Jane says, pointing to the way Ruby has one fingertip in her mouth currently when only moments ago it had been dipped in the honey Anne had brought for them for lunch.

Ruby pouts at Jane, crossing her arms. “Well, maybe if _someone_ hadn’t eaten all the bread, I’d have something to put the honey on!”

“I had two pieces!” Jane holds up two fingers, as though Ruby might not know how to count. “Only two!”

“They _were_ the largest pieces,” Josie says casually,

Jane rolls her eyes. “Oh, you’re just putting fuel into the fire, Josie.”

Anne groans. “Girls –”

“I think we should all just get along and remember to thank Anne for the food she’s brought us,” Tillie says, smiling toward Anne sweetly. “Thank you, Anne.”

“Yes, Tillie, it’s fine, but I have –”

Jane pipes up with, “Well, maybe we shouldn’t even _bring_ food for each other if we can’t share it properly!”

Ruby leans toward Jane, her face all scrunched up. Anne supposes she’s trying to look menacing, but all it really does is make her look more adorable. “Just because you hog all of the meal doesn’t mean that the rest of us should be punished –”

“ _Girls!”_ Anne shouts loud enough for the whole schoolhouse to hear. The boys in the corner tittle with boyish laughter at the four of them. All the girls shut their mouths with a clink of their teeth, their eyes big and startled at Anne’s outburst. Anne sighs. “I have something important to ask of you, something much more important than honey and bread.”

Josie snorts, taking another bite. “I can’t imagine there’s anything happening in Avonlea that is more important than our –”

“Princess Diana wanted me to invite you all to her upcoming birthday ball.”

Josie almost chokes on the food in her mouth. “ _What?_ ” She splutters.

“The – the _princess_ ?” Ruby practically squeaks, looking at Anne like this is an impossibility. “ _Us?_ ”

“Oh, Anne!” Tillie says joyfully, clutching a hand to her chest, “Are you serious? What did you do to convince her to let us come?”

“Nothing! I’ve just told her many stories about you all, and she’d like to finally meet you.” The thought warms of all her friends being in one room warms her heart. Sometimes, she can easily imagine Diana sat right here in the schoolhouse with all of them, gossiping away during lunch time.

“I’ll have to get a new dress tailored,” Jane murmurs, her eyes staring blankly ahead like she is now overwhelmed with all the possible prep the event will take. “I’ll have to buy new shoes! _And_ stockings!”

“I think I’m dreaming,” Ruby says, her face suddenly pale, “Someone pinch me.” When Tillie does, Ruby lets out a startled, “Ow!” and slaps her hand away.

Anne just laughs fondly at the sight of all them. “So I can tell her yes?”

“ _Duh,_ ” Josie says, smiling wider than Anne has ever seen her do, “What kind of girls would we be if we didn’t go to the princess’ ball after being personally invited?”

“Oh, do you think my parents will let me go?” Tillie worries suddenly, holding her face in her hands.

Josie snorts. “I’d like to see your parents say no to the heir to the throne.”

Anne grins brightly at all of them. “Well – I’ll write to her soon and let her know that you all are expected to come. She’ll be very excited.”

" _She’ll_ be excited? I’ll just about die on the spot when I meet her! Oh, I can imagine it now,” Ruby sighs dreamily, “How wonderful she’ll look in her dress – Anne, have you seen it yet? And my goodness, I can’t imagine how many boys will want to dance with her – maybe there will be boys who want to dance with _us_.”

The four of them giggle. “ _Royal_ boys.” Tillie remarks, wiggling her eyebrows up and down, and then they giggle some more.

“Sons of Dukes and Duchesses – maybe even _princes_ if we’re lucky,” Jane adds, nodding enthusiastically at this vision they’ve all procured in their heads.

“Princes aren’t quite what they’re cracked up to be,” Anne murmurs, but none of them seem to hear her.

“Oh Anne,” Ruby says, gazing at her from across their circle, “I don’t know how you do it. If I were friends with Princess Diana, I would spend every moment kissing her feet and asking her to introduce me to all the handsome boys she knows.”

A weird, funny feeling sprouts in Anne’s chest at this idea one dimensional idea of Diana. “Well,” Anne says, playing with the ends of her braids to have something to distract from the sudden open chasm in her stomach. “It’s not all as glamorous as it seems. She’s just a normal girl.”

Josie lets out a little hysterical laugh. “Yeah, and I’m the long lost heir to a faraway land.” She shakes her head. “Anne, you really don’t get it, do you? How lucky you are to be friends with someone like her?”

Anne feels her face go red. “Of _course_ I know how lucky I am,” she says adamantly, “Of course I –”

It’s then that Miss Stacy rings the bell outside the school house and marches in, a grin on her face as she idly wipes her hands on her skirt. “Girls!” She says cheerfully, smiling at all of them as she rounds back to her desk, “Ready to get started with afternoon lessons?”

The four of them reply in unison, “Yes, Miss Stacy,” but Anne sits statically, her face still flushed in frustration.

She replies to Diana that night, and for a moment - a brief, terrible moment - Anne almost writes that the girls cannot actually make it for her birthday. The idea of the four of them eating Diana up with such a ravenous gaze makes Anne sick to her stomach. She has to share the image of Diana with the entire country, but the _real_ Diana, the girl who takes Anne’s hands and twirls her around when they dance in her room or the girl who reads silently with her in the sunshine, their feet tangled together on the grass, that girl is the one she won’t give up. That’s the girl Gilbert is trying to take from her, and for a moment, the idea of having to share her with four other people seems too much. 

She pauses writing the letter, goes downstairs to grab a glass of water and stick her head into the foyer where she glares at Gilbert’s head with a heated gaze, and then when she comes back upstairs, she looks at the piece of parchment for a rather long time before she picks up her pen again and dips it in ink.

_The girls have told me that they would all love to come to the ball! They were so excited at the idea and I was too._

_I miss you very much, and I can’t wait to hear from you next._

It’s a cool spring day, the type of day that fairy tales start from, where the birds are out and singing, the grass is greener than it’s been in months, and everybody’s laughing like they’ve just remembered how to.

And Anne cannot enjoy any of it, because Gilbert is side-by-side with Marilla in the kitchen learning how to make bread. The two of them are smiling happily and Marilla is being more patient with him than she’s _ever_ been with Anne, and Anne hates him for it. Anne hates him for all of it, everything that he represents and is here to do, and the anger is thick like sludge in her throat, unable to dissolve and only grows heavier and heavier with each glance at him.

She glares at the back of his head as he stands next to Marilla, and Marilla leans close to him to show him how to knead the dough.

“Like this?” Anne hears him ask.

“Yes,” Marilla says with shining approval, “Exactly! There you go.” She steps away for a moment to go get something on the other counter, and Anne can see the small little smile tucked in Marilla’s face. Anne hates it. She _loathes_ it.

“Why so grumpy, eh?” She swivels around to find Jerry grinning at her as he carries a large pale of milk into the kitchen, Matthew following shortly behind him. Jerry then notices Gilbert in an apron at the counter and his eyes brighten with the possibilities of teasing Anne. “Are you upset Marilla has found a helper in the kitchen who won’t burn everything he bakes?”

Anne is _this_ close to sticking her ankle out and tripping Jerry so he falls flat on his face as he walks forward, but that means that so would all the milk he’s carrying. “I’ll have you know that I am a good cook, just _not_ a good baker.”

“I asked her if she wanted to help, but she said no,” Marilla sniffs, throwing a pointed look at Anne as she walks back over to help Gilbert again.

Anne _had_ said no. Of course she had. Why would she want to spend the afternoon elbow-to-elbow with Gilbert?

“And I’ll have you know that I am _not_ grumpy,” she tells Jerry pointedly, crossing her arms and huffing in a way that could be described as nothing else beside grumpy.

Anne catches Gilbert start to smile at her, as though he finds her act endearing, but she glares at him so hard that it falls away from his lips instantly. All he’s left with is brows furrowed in confusion.

“Jerry, why don’t you stay for dinner tonight?” Matthew suggests as he hands Jerry his pay for the day.

Jerry blinks, surprised. “What?” He looks around at all of them. “Are you sure?”

Gilbert turns around to smile sheepishly. “I’m afraid I’ve made enough bread to last the whole spring and summer, so we have food to go around.”

“That does sound quite nice,” Marilla replies, shocking Anne most of all with her chipper attitude, “It’s been a long time since we’ve had a feast in this house.”

Jerry’s smile is toothy and blinding. “Thank you!” He exclaims, and then rushes over to Gilbert eagerly. “Can I help?”

He, Gilbert, and Marilla get lost in preparing and cooking for the meal, the three of them shuffling around the kitchen happily as Anne slouches in her place at the table bench. It’s Matthew who notices her and leans down to give her a kiss on the forehead.

“You alright?” He asks in a low voice so none of the others might hear him.

Anne looks up at him, his kind face that smiles easily down at her, and she takes one of his hands in her own. It’s wrinkly and calloused from work, and his thumbs shake a little when they rub across her knuckles, but it has her feeling thirteen and young again, like she’s seconds away from crumpling into his chest and crying.

She’s not sure what to say. It feels a shame to waste a night like this, where everyone around her is in such high spirits, drowning in her own pool of sorrows, but she can’t seem to come up for air. She keeps thinking about that letter Diana sent to her last week, the words following her around like a ghost, how she sounded only like an echo of the girl who was Anne’s best friend. Anne can’t stop feeling anger rise up in her chest when she looks at Gilbert for all the things he represents, and most of all, she’s upset that nobody else is able to see it.

Anne could say all of this to Matthew, and he would nod kindly and listen, but it would worry him, she knows, and that’s the last thing she wants. 

She squeezes his hand. “Just tired,” she admits, and then tries for a smile. He smiles back, pats her on the back, and then rouses her up.

“Come on, come help me check the animals before the sun goes down,” he tells her, and they go outside, hand-in-hand toward the barn, where Anne finds that it’s easier to breathe.

“You did _what_?” Jerry asks with big eyes, his mouth gaping open. All the food he’s just stuck in it might as well be seconds from tumbling out.

“It was like a Grand Tour,” Gilbert explains, cutting his meal into little pieces with such proper manners his royalty is almost an eyesore for Anne, “It’s like a rite of passage for when you come of age. My father went on one when he was younger, so he sent me and Bash on a ship to see the world.”

“Wow,” Matthew mumbles, spooning up peas and carrots.

“I cannot even imagine that,” Jerry says, his voice so obviously full of wonder. “What was it like?”

“It was great,” Gilbert says joyfully, a flash of a smile gracing his face like he’s remembering every single detail, “I’d never really left the kingdom before. It was like I was a little kid again, and all the world seemed so big.” Gilbert pushes the food on his plate around. “It was the best present my father ever gave me.”

Marilla keeps the mood up by clearing her throat and offering a smile. “Well, that sounds lovely, Gilbert. You’ll have to tell us all your stories while you stay with us.”

Gilbert smiles back at her warmly. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a storyteller, but I’ll try.”

He sits next to Anne at the table, the two of them on one side, and it forces Anne to have to look at him more than she’d like to. She has to watch the way he pushes his hair from out of his face even though the curls bounce right back into place, anyway, and the way his profile catches her attention out of the corner of her eyes, his strong jawline and his cheeks that dimple when he grins.

Anne hates it. She hates the way his arm brushes against hers when he lifts it up to scoop peas onto his plate. She hates the way he looks at home here, with flour dusted onto his clothes from earlier in the day and freckles starting to pop out on his cheeks from working with Matthew in the sun. She hates that he looks even a little bit like he belongs in Green Gables.

Gilbert suddenly glances toward her, holding the plate of peas in his hands. “Do you want some –”

“ _No_.” Anne declares, her eyes shooting daggers at him. “I’m just fine, thanks.”

Gilbert gives her the most baffled look. “Okay…” he says, moving to offer Matthew some instead.

Anne feels a sharp poke on her arm, and she whips around to look at Jerry. “What?” She whispers, rubbing the sore spot on her skin.

“What is your problem?” He hisses and then tilts his chin toward Gilbert.

“I’m fine,” Anne says shortly, waving Jerry off quickly so that nobody else at the table notices their conversation.

Jerry’s eyes squint, like the gears in his head are just starting to turn. “Is this about –” he starts to say, but Anne cuts him off before he can finish the sentence.

“Peas!” She exclaims, and then snatches the dish out of a bewildered Gilbert’s hands. “Jerry, do _you_ want peas?”

Jerry looks at her warily, but he murmurs, “Yes, _merci_ ,” when Anne spoons a heaping of vegetables onto his plate. She avoids his shrewd gaze and tries to ignore everyone looking at her from around the table.

“Anne, are you alright?” Marilla asks, a wrinkle between her brows. “You’ve been acting odd all dinner –”

“Oh, I’m fine, Marilla,” Anne assures her from across the table, deftly ignoring the stares from the two boys on either side of her.

Marilla is wholly unconvinced, but she doesn’t speak up, too worried about causing a scene in front of Gilbert, Anne’s sure. She just puts on a smile and she clears her throat, swiftly moving the topic of conversation to something else.

Everybody else gets over Anne’s sore mood. While they spend the rest of dinner laughing and eating happily, Gilbert and Jerry swapping stories like the best friends they are now, apparently, Anne sits and sulks in her spot next to Gilbert, inching away from him on the table bench any moment she can until she’s almost falling off the bench.

Jerry stays after dinner to help clean up, and he and Gilbert wash the dishes while laughing merrily with each other about God knows what as Anne clears the table. She's so lost stewing in her frustration about Gilbert that she doesn't even notice that Gilbert has come to stand by her side until he clears his throat and asks, “Did you have a good day?”

Anne whips her head to look at him, blinking in surprise. He helps her gather up the rest of the mats on the table and looks up at her with bright eyes.

“What?” She asks when she realizes he’s waiting for her response.

Gilbert stifles a laugh at her confusion. “Did you have a good day? You know, at school.” 

Anne is baffled at why he would be asking her something like this. The most they had ever spoken his whole stay was that day in the fields with the cows. “It was fine.” She remarks, timid.

“What were your lessons?"

“We’re studying narrative structure,” She says, putting away the cutlery and then turning around to fold up the tablecloth.

“That will be good for you!” Jerry says brightly from his place leaning against the kitchen cupboards. It seems that he’s found one of the lemon tarts that Marilla made last week and he’s snacking on it joyfully. He turns toward Gilbert and says, “Anne likes to write stories –”

“Jerry!” Anne feels her face flush, not in the mood to be teased.

Jerry scoffs in offense. “You do! I was not trying to make fun of you –”

“What do you write?” Gilbert asks, and he’s still so close to her, hovering around her side with eager eyes and a gentle voice. To have all of his attention at once is very overwhelming, Anne finds, and so she has a hard time looking him in the eyes.

Embarrassment soars in Anne’s chest at the thought of all those childish romance stories she used to spend days crafting, only to read them out dramatically to Ruby during lunch and have her giggle and blush when the two main characters eventually ended up kissing. She’d written smaller things here and there on scraps of paper in her room since that she’s sure are lost to time, but none of them had ever been that substantial.

Gilbert is waiting for an answer, but instead of giving him one, she just says, “You ask a lot of questions.” Her voice comes out sounding nowhere near as playful as his had and it suddenly changes the entire mood of the room.

“Right,” Gilbert says shortly. “Sorry.” All the softness that had just been on his face the moment before disappeared completely, and with that he moves away from her and into the foyer unceremoniously, without even another look her way.

Anne concentrates very hard on folding up the tablecloth neatly, trying to ignore the drop of shame suddenly at home in her stomach.

“ _What_ is your problem?” Jerry asks, coming up to her. “He says anything and you – you stick your nose up at him!”

Anne looks toward Jerry and says desperately, “I don’t know him, why should I tell him anything about myself?” but her voice suddenly sounds like it belongs to a stranger. Those are not words Anne Shirley would usually say, not about anyone.

Jerry just rolls his eyes. “It is a lot of work to hate him how you do. Just talk to him,” he tells her, exasperated and shaking his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He sounds almost disappointed in her, and the feeling sinks into Anne’s skin as she watches Jerry walk away and wave his goodbyes to everyone from the other room.

Anne swallows. She looks back down at the tablecloth, at her hands, the skin freckled even there. She hears Gilbert’s laugh, soft and muffled from where he must be sitting in the foyer, and she squeezes her eyes close like somehow that will peel away all the bad feelings from her chest.

Anne tries not to think about it all as she gets ready for bed, as though it’s even possible to completely turn one’s thoughts off. Goodness, she tries though. She tries as she puts on her nightgown, as she looks at her reflection in her vanity and undoes her braids, as she lights a candle to put on her bedside, and then sits on her bed in a huff once she realizes she can’t stop thinking.

She decides to go downstairs and snag a book from her school bag to hopefully tire herself out from reading. She grabs her candle dish and tiptoes out of her room, eyeing Gilbert’s door at the end of the hall nervously like she’s afraid he might jump out and scare her.

Downstairs, she digs through her school things and checks her coat pockets, trying tirelessly to find her book of fables that she must have misplaced, when she hears a weird shuddering noise from the other room that grabs her attention.

Anne leaves her candle on the kitchen table and tiptoes silently toward the foyer doorway to peak around the corner. She’s not all that surprised to see Gilbert sat in the plush chair by the windows; he had seemed to claim that spot since he surfaced from his room, and it wasn’t uncommon to find him there during his down time reading or talking to Marilla as she did needlepoint. Anne expects to see him with a book in his lap, his face concentrated and focused at the page in front of him, but that’s not what she finds at all.

He’s looking out the window and up at the starry sky, his jaw resting on the top of the chair’s back. Anne can only see the back of his head, his curls that look inky in the nighttime, but she stands there and studies him for a moment anyway, her hands clutching the detail of the doorway.

By the time she realizes that his shoulders are shaking unnaturally, he’s already shifted so that his profile is visible to Anne. She watches him wipe his cheeks with the sleeve of his shirt and hears him sniff. With a start, she realizes he must be crying. She's so shocked to see his tears, even though she shouldn't be. He had seemed completely fine past those first few days in the house, happy and glad to be where he was. His grief had seemed to evaporate so suddenly, Anne had almost entirely forgotten that it should be there - that it _was_ there, she just wasn't looking hard enough.

At the same moment that she notices his tears, he becomes aware of her. His head immediately whips up to look at her, and it’s red all over, splotchy and ruined.

Immediately Anne blurts out, “I didn’t mean to – I wasn’t spying on you!” She feels her face flush, her hands curling into themselves where they’ve gone to rest at her sides, and she feels a bit exposed, standing in front of him in only her nightgown, her hair undone from it’s braids and hanging pin straight over her face and shoulders. 

Gilbert just looks at her blankly. “I didn’t think you were, Anne,” he says, his voice thick from crying. He scrubs at his eyes again and looks away from her, and Anne wonders what in the world she should do.

The only time she’s ever seen a boy cry was when Billy Andrews climbed on the roof of the schoolhouse only to fall off and break his leg, but she hadn’t been close to him when the incident happened. She’d only seen from a distance as the other boys carried Billy away, his face pink and puffy from tears, and all she’d thought was how he looked like the Hammond’s infants when they cried for their mother as she held them.

Gilbert doesn’t look like that at all. He looks like the type of boy oil painters long to find in the real world for reference, red-rimmed and tragic but somehow devastatingly beautiful in his sadness. She can’t stop thinking about that for some reason, how much he looks like he’s a boy who’s just stepped out of a painting.

Anne swallows. She takes a small step toward him, her bare feet on the hardwood floor. “I’m an orphan,” she tells him lamely, “I mean – my parents – I was really young when they –”

“It’s fine, Anne.” Gilbert tells her, but it comes out quiet, a defeated whisper. He’s still not looking at her, he’s just looking down at his hands. She studies the sweep of his jaw, the bridge of his nose, his ruddy cheeks.

“But even then I still cry,” she says, stepping even closer, “I didn’t even know them and sometimes I find myself waking up from a dream about them with tears already in my eyes.” She swallows. “I – I can’t imagine what it must be like to love someone your whole life and lose them. I’m so sorry.”

Gilbert doesn’t move, not an inch. Just stares at his hands. In that moment, Anne’s sure that she’s messed it all up, that she’ll just have to silently shrink back up to her room and never look at him again the whole time he stays with them.

But then his words burst through the silence. “My father’s been sick for months.” He tilts his head up toward the moon, “I told him goodbye before I left, just in case, but I didn’t really think…” Then his mouth twists, and he just stops, the words stolen from him.

Anne whispers, “You couldn’t have known.”

“I think I should have, though,” Gilbert replies, glancing back at her for the first time since their conversation started. He looks like he’s moments away from crying again. “I _knew_ what could have happened, and I left to come here anyway, and he died without me.”

Anne just shakes her head incessantly. “I don’t know much about death, but I know a lot about love,” she tells him, finding her voice once again, stepping closer and looking at him intently, “and I know that when we love people, we don’t want them to stop living their lives because of our suffering. When Marilla has headaches that are so bad she can’t leave the bed, she always shoos me away while assuring me that she feels fine, and when Matthew stresses about the farm and our finances, he always puts on a good smile so I’ll stop worrying.” Gilbert smiles a little, despite himself, and Anne continues, “I’m sure your father knew what could have happened just as well as you did, and I’m also sure that he loved you enough to ask you to keep moving forward and living your life.”

The moment descends into silence, the only sound being the crickets from outside and the distant noise of wind through the nearby forest fluttering the leaves and branches altogether. Gilbert sits there statically, all this tension in his shoulders and spine. Anne feels a chill run up her back from the nighttime cold, and she wonders how Gilbert can sit by the window, in only a bare cotton shirt and trousers and not feel a little chilly on a spring night like this.

“I just wish I could be there,” he says, his voice still ruined, “at least for his funeral.”

An acrid sense of sadness strikes in Anne’s stomach. She couldn’t imagine that; losing Matthew or Marilla and not being there to bury them. “Can I... sit with you?” She asks tentatively.

He looks at her, surprised. “Sure,” he nods and moves over to create room on the seat cushion.

Anne sits on the edge, as far away as she can from him, and twists her hands in her lap. The thick silence, stale and uncomfortable, surrounds the two of them as Anne thinks of what to say. She'd always struggled with comforting people and much preferred showing her love through actions or well thought out letters, things where she didn't have to worry about messing up and saying the wrong thing or coming off too strong.

She looks resolutely down at the carpet when she rushes out, “I just want to tell you that I’m sorry I’ve been so _horrible_ to you during your stay here.” She spares a glance up at him. Gilbert is watching her intently, his face giving nothing away. “It’s supposed to be my job to protect you while you’re here, and all I’ve managed to do is make you feel worse.”

Gilbert shakes his head. “It’s not your job –”

“It is,” Anne tells him swiftly. “I promised the Queen that. Even outside of that, I’ve been very… insensitive to your situation. I've been immature.” Suddenly everything she had been upset at him about seems childish in the wake of his problems. “You don’t deserve that.”

Anne can feel the heat of his stare boring into the side of her face. When he asks her, “Did I do something for you hate me?” the stark honesty of his voice shakes her.

She tells him, “I don’t hate you.” She doesn’t even know him, really. She hates what he’s here to do. She hates that he’s walked into her life and so easily stolen the hearts of everyone she loves, especially Diana’s. She hates that her words feel like an admission of defeat, like somehow because she’s finally said this out loud he’ll be off to court and marry Diana by tomorrow morning and she’ll disappear from Anne’s life in a snap.

Instead, Gilbert absorbs her words and then nods once firmly. “I’m glad,” he says with enough warmth that it surprises Anne, and then he teases, his voice still a little broken from crying, “Fighting with you all of the time was getting exhausting, and I need to talk to someone about all the books I’ve been reading while I’ve been here.”

There’s a ghost of a smile on his lips, a small uptick in the corners. It’s just as friendly as that first day she’d met him and he’d smiled at her from across the castle dinner table. She jumps at the opportunity for their conversation to go back to normal, to shift back into being a hotheaded girl instead of a vulnerable little thing in front of a boy she doesn't really know. “I'm sure we have very different tastes in literature, Prince Gilbert.” She huffs playfully.

She calls him this just to see the way he scrunches his nose up in disgust, and he knows it. “Perhaps you just haven’t opened your heart up to the great classics, _Anne._ ”

The way he says her name lights her stomach up a bit. She presses her hands there through her nightgown, as if she could smother it, and then she quickly stands up from the chair. “Well, I’ll be off to bed now,” she switches her weight from foot to foot while looking down at him, suddenly nervous to be near him now that their bubble of vulnerability has been broken. “You should sleep as well.”

Exhaustion clouds his face even as he smiles up at her, but it’s a bone-deep kind of tired, the one that culminates after a bad night’s rest for months on end. “I will,” he assures her, and then tackles on, “...eventually.”

She nods at him and nervously pushes a tendril of hair back behind her ear. “Goodnight then.”

“Goodnight, Anne.” He says, and she turns around quickly, eager to get upstairs and into her bed, away from all of Gilbert’s… Gilbert-ness, his stares that make her feel funny and his face that is always too kind, but then he calls to her softly, almost like he would be alright if she didn't end up hearing it, “Thank you for listening to me.”

Anne turns back around in the doorway. The moonlight carves out half of Gilbert’s face and, for the first time since meeting him, Anne thinks that he finally does look like a prince, ethereal and a little grander than the ground he walks on. She almost wishes she was a painter in that moment, that she could capture this still of him in her memory and recreate it somewhere for other people to see it.

She nods again. “Thank you for forgiving me,” she tells him, the words quick out of her mouth because they burn a little shamefully on her tongue, and then she twirls around and pads her way upstairs.

She lays in bed after that, staring up at the ceiling with her mind running around and around in circles of thought, not any better than before, except now she can't seem to calm her heart down. It beats fast under her skin, a pitter-patter that matches the sound of Gilbert's footsteps as he finally makes his way up the stairs to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so sorry i am INCAPABLE of writing anything beside excruciating slowburn
> 
> i'm on tumblr @ [boosfic](https://boosfic.tumblr.com/) !


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